I have often wondered whether New York City or South Florida has the most Italian restaurants. Of course most people who open an Italian restaurant are originally from NYC or, instead of retiring, if they had a restaurant there they would come down here and open one with 'formerely of New York' on their sign, on their window and printed on their menu.

While I wonder about that I, also, wonder, with the economy the way it is, if the Big Apple has as many restaurants offering 2-4-1 coupons as we do here in Orange country?  I came across Zouba's web site due to restaurant.com and saw the former were making a better offer and with us watching our pennies, but not wanting to give up our Wednesday lunches we decided to go there this rainy afternoon.

Zoubar's is like a hundred, maybe a thousand, other Italian restaurants in Fort Lauderdale and neither the decor, or the menu, of this restaurant stood out. Granted it didn't have red and white checkered plastic tablecloths or empty bottles of Chianti with a candle in it on each table but it was a storefront in a strip mall as so many are.

What could have possibly been the chef/owner, or just a cook, brought the menus to us and took our drink order---Allen had iced tea ($1.79)  and I stuck to water--which was brought to us by the waitress along with a basket of warm, which could have been homemade, bread, surprisingly  not soaked in oil and covered in garlic, and brushed with cheese.

       

We started off with salads, which came with the main course, basically a salad that is served in more than one restaurant consisting of pre-cut bagged lettuce and a slice each of tomato, onion and green pepper with 2 tiny black olives. Allen has balsamic vinegar and oil on his while I had, what was obviously bottled, blue cheese.

For a change Allen had a portion that was bigger than mine! He ordered the pasta combo ($9.95) consisting of ziti, manicotti and one, yes one, ravioli covered with sauce and cheese. I had the lasagna ($8.95) a smallish portion but enough for lunch. Would almost bet it was pre-cut frozen from a provider though the restaurant does boast, on their web page, that. their sauce is homemade. Should it be it wasn't much better than a good store bought sauce.

The check, with tax, minus the cost of  one entree, came to $12.98 which isn't bad for lunch in this area. The food wasn't bad but it wasn't good enough for a second future visit