I could read all the food blogs in the world and go to all the restaurants they claim to be great, but nothing really ever beats a personal recommendation. Usually it comes from someone you know and they know your taste better any anonymous or famous food critics. So when my buddy and his lady friend suggested we hit up an Italian place called San Gennaro in Brentwood, I was ready for business.

When we arrived, one look at the menu told me this was not going to be an easy choice. Instantly my eyes met with gnocchi, Italian fried chicken and Ray’s Special pizza. Instead of making the tough decision myself, I asked the waiter to decide for me and he picked the pizza.

This special pizza was not just some boring meat-lover’s or anything like that, but simply topped with chicken sausage and rubbed down with pesto sauce instead of tomato. It sounded like a unique combination of flavors and I was happy with the choice that had been made for me. But before getting my pizza, I had myself a ton of their bread, which was soft, garlicky and delicious. By the time my pizza came, I had already eaten half my weight in bread, but I was still excited for some interesting flavors.

Well, at least until I ate the thing. It was then that I thought perhaps I had made the wrong choice. On the first bite I realized that the dough was…well…doughy. Not greasy like a New York pizza or crispy like an Italian-style, but just kind of limp and doughy. It was a disappointing start and I quickly found that the rest of the ingredients didn’t really make up for it. Both sausage and pesto generally have delicious and powerful flavors and my biggest worry going into the pizza was that they would overpower each other. Instead, the exact opposite happened and neither offered up much flavor at all. Had the garlic dulled my senses? It didn’t feel that way, and when I asked my girlfriend how she felt about her food, she seemed to reflect the same opinion.

After finishing half, I was full and took the other half to go. I also figured it would be a good test of my potentially dulled senses to try it again the next day. After giving the pizza a good toasting the day after, I found that little of the flavor had improved. But what did improve was the crust, which now had a decent crisp to it.

So perhaps both the girlfriend and I ordered the wrong thing. Or perhaps San Gennaro is just the kind of restaurant that is nice to have in your neighborhood, but not worth driving to. It wasn’t bad by any means, but I have no need for a restaurant where the best thing I can say about my meal was that it “wasn’t bad.” I must admit that the prices were pretty good and the Groupon our friends had didn’t hurt the cause much either. Yet, there is so much amazing Italian food in the world to be eaten and I’d rather not waste another Italian meal at just-passable San Gennaro.

So one night I was told we were going to a cheap sushi place for dinner. Fine. You all know I am not a sushi fan, but if I’m going to eat it, it should at least be cheap. Somehow we wound up at Asakuma Restaurant in Brentwood, which was not cheap at all. This wasn’t the fault of the restaurant, but still I can’t understand why sushi is expensive. I fail to notice a difference between expensive and cheap sushi. In fact, some of the best I’ve ever had was also some of the cheapest I’ve ever had. Wow, do you readers ever get tired of me griping about sushi? No? Good, then read on about some Asakuma.

Despite the high prices, I found a pretty good-looking unvegan dish called Spicy Tuna Watermelon on one of their special menus for 10 bucks. This didn’t have a vegetable in sight and was loaded with spicy tuna and fried. The name confused me, but I like watermelon, so I figured I couldn’t really go wrong. When it came, I realized that it was called watermelon because of the way it was cut into wedges, rather than having any actual watermelon in it. This would have been okay except that there were only four pieces and they were pretty small for 10 bucks. No extra crab legs hanging out or anything else. They had a semi-spicy and sweet sauce on them and were covered in tiny little crunchballs, which were actually a nice touch.

After we all finished, the bill came. There were about eight of us at the table and someone decided that we would split the bill evenly. Ordinarily, my roll and beer would have cost me about 20 bucks, including tax and tip, which is already ludicrous. But when other people ordered multiple drinks and rolls, my cost came out to more than 30 bucks. This was not Asakuma’s fault, but it taught me a valuable lesson: Never order something cheap in a big group. You will get screwed. In truth, 10 bucks isn’t a lot of money, but it’s more of the principle of me paying for someone else’s drinks or sushi, which I didn’t intend to do.

The service was spotty at best, and I know we were a big group, but it would be nice to order a meal within 20 minutes sitting down and get the bill within 20 minutes of finishing. I don’t like to be rushed while I’m eating, but I would at least be able to see the waitress if want something.

Anyway, Asakuma made some decent sushi. Perhaps one day I will discover sushi that will blow me away. I just don’t really see that happening.

A drunken stumble across the street from Cabo Cantina in Brentwood, sits Di Vita’s Pizzeria, a relatively unassuming pizza parlor.

After an evening of drinking at Cabo, I found myself across the street at this parlor peering through the window to see what it looked like. I saw a couple at a table and decided they looked pretty happy. As we walked in, the couple stood up and we realized they both worked there and we were the only patrons in the place.

We looked at the menu as one of my friends frantically tried to read about the place on his iPhone. Finding nothing online, we decided to stick it out and ordered a large pepperoni pizza. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Perhaps it only took 10 minutes to get our pizza, but our drunken hunger got the best of us and it felt like hours.

Finally, our pizza arrived like manna from heaven. As you can see by the picture, I didn’t even have time to snap a picture before multiple pieces had been snagged from the pie. It had been a long time since I had tasted such good pizza. Perhaps it was the alcohol that made it so good, or that hunger is the best spice. Whatever the reason, this was some great pizza that I would highly recommend for anyone looking for something different.