You may not believe me
folks but it was cold enough outside today at 2 PM that I was wearing the one
pair of long pants I have, a jacket and, definitely NOT flip flops!! What better
excuse to have a hot pizza? A new restaurant called Bellini's opened in a spot 
that use to be called Offerdahls and
that we often went for lunch with 'buy 1-get 1 free coupons' and, maybe,
spending $10 total for 2 of us--that was definitely NOT the case now.

The following is from their web site:  http://bellinispizza.com/  which is worth checking
out just for the pictures.
"Bellini's is a coal fired pizza concept dedicated
to serving high quality artisan thin crust pizzas.  Bellini's also offers a full
menu with made to order salads, paninis, pastas and appetizers/side dishes.
 Desserts include an in house made ricotta cheesecake, smores and gourmet sorbets.
 

Bellini's makes fresh dough in house utilizing unbleached wheat
flour.  Bellini's also offers a dough made with whole wheat and wheat flour.
 This house made dough is combined with quality ingredients and then cooked to
order in a coal fired oven.  The coal fired oven cooks at approximately
800-degrees creating a unique pizza.  Pizzas are cooked directly on the oven
stone.
The result is a delicious and crispy thin crust pizza."

      




What was once new and trendy is now old hat as most
restaurants are serving on square plates, over sized coffee cups, decorated with
glass chandeliers, black furniture to look like leather but aren't which is just
how Bellini's is decorated.

Another big trend, at least in South Florida, are
pizzas cooked in coal ovens. Again what was once new is now all over the town.
Yes, they have crispy thin crusts but I like crispy thick crusts.

Allen and I split a house
salad made with Romaine, Kalamata Olives, red onions, Tomatoes, Blue cheese, (which we had on the side as Allen
doesn't care for same), hard boiled eggs, house made croutons and tossed with
red wine vinaigrette ($9) which I found bland is spite of the ingredients. Allen
had his diet coke ($2.50) while I had coffee ($2).

We then split a small 'Meat Lovers' pizza ($15) made
with sausage, bacon, pepperoni, tomato sauce and fresh Mozzarella on a whole
wheat crust. To me it tasted like 'flat' bread with assorted toppings. With both
of us being on diets we didn't have dessert.

Lorenzo, our waiter, who
is from Brazil and use to work at Chima's where I had taken Allen for his
birthday, was efficient checking back after serving each item, refilling our
drinks--and he was good looking, which
didn't hurt so we left him a $6 tip (LOL), which, with tax, brought the total to
$36.48, a bit too much for lunch.

With the current economy I think we will be going
back to 2-4-1 lunches which won't average $18 each. While the restaurant looked
impressive, if not original, the food wasn't impressive enough, if not original,
just okay.