12925 El Camino Real, San Diego, CA 92130
http://www.sammyspizza.com/


I’ve always heard about this place, but never really bothered to look into it. They have several locations scattered throughout San Diego. I figured that pizza was pizza, so there wasn’t anything too special. I had been told that it was like an upscale California Pizza kitchen. The moment I walked in the restaurant, I noticed there was a line of people waiting to be seated(which is always a good sign because the food is probably going to be good). The wait wasn’t too long, it was about 10 minutes.

The menu had the typical pizza, salads, and sandwiches you would probably see at any restaurant. The thing that had caught my eye was that they had tapas. That surprised me because I wouldn’t have thought that they would serve tapas style food at a place like Sammy’s. They are known for their woodfired pizza, so it would have been a shame if I didn’t give it a try.


I decided on the LaDou’s Barbecue Chicken pizza $9.95(their most popular pizza according to the menu). You really can’t go wrong with bbq chicken. You’d think that because it was cooked in a woodfired oven that there would be ash all over the pizza and the pizza would be bitter, however that wasn’t the case. Cooking it in a woodfire oven gave it a nice crispness and had a really nice crunch when biting into it. It wasn’t oversauced like the many pizzas I’ve had in the past. The red onions gave it a little nice amount of sweetness. The chicken had just the right amount of seasonings to it to balance out the sweetness of the barbecue sauce.

I would definitely pick Sammy’s over California Pizza Kitchen any day. The woodfire oven does really make the pizza a whole lot better than the everyday conventional oven pizzas. I will come back and see if their tapas are any good. For those of you who don’t know what tapas are. They are small quantities of food that are inexpensive, so that the eater could order many of them and be able to try many different dishes. It’s basically an appetizer, but I guess I’m just curious since I’ve never tried a tapa before.

Taste: 7/10
Service: 3/5
Environment: 3/5
Total: 13/20