I've been eating a lot of Japanese food lately, and I was tempted to let all four pics on the front page reflect that (I mean, the Orange County portal is pretty much all Vietnamese, so there's precedent). But Ray and Melissa were in the mood for Italian, so I used it as a chance to head over to Osteria La Buca. I hadn't been since the expansion, but going from one type of noodle to another is really easy, especially if there's burrata involved.

There's been a lot of negative criticism of OLB on message boards, especially surrounding the price-to-quality ratio. Frankly, I still think it's a quality Italian restaurant that has to live in the post-Mozza world. With its proximity to Paramount Studios, it's hard to fault them for wanting to be a combination pizzeria/osteria like their neighbors a mile away.

At the end of the day, the food still has to sing, and it truly does. The winners here are the more rustic dishes, though Italian stalwarts like caprese salads and puttanesca still shine. In these simple dishes, it's a chance for ingredients to get shown off, especially the wonderful mozzarella.

A favorite for me was a recent special, spinach linguine with chicken liver. This is a dish that, again, seems to take Mozza head-on (and here's to hoping that chicken liver is this year's pork belly). The dish had a great meaty, rich and earthy characteristic that I love in an accompanying sauce to house-made pasta, complementing its texture and flavor.

OLB isn't perfect, but I'd been eating a lot of food that swings the pendulum from austere to unpretentious, and Osteria La Buca nicely served a meal that balances them both.