pauly’s pizza joint / miramar – san diego, ca

Last week was Jake and I’s 7th Anniversary! Jake had to work on the evening of our actual anniversary so we weren’t planning on celebrating until later in the week but I managed to get him to come and have lunch with me on the day of. He was late in coming by to get me and I was starting to get REALLY cranky pants on him because the HUNGER was consuming all of the my thoughts.

Since I knew I could barely stand to wait for food, I suggested we check out this pizzeria near my office called Pauly’s Pizza Joint.

This place is in this itty bitty strip mall off Miramar Rd. next to Carls’ Jr. (closer to the 805). It’s a nightmare to try and park in there during the height of lunch, but it was now 2PM and so luckily parking was a breeze. I NEEDED FOOD. STAT.

You can’t really see it because of the glare, but there are a bunch of pans of pizza on the other side of the glass. Jake is getting our drinks – we got 2 slices + a drink for $6 each.

This is their menu – they have more than just pizza here! I might swing by again and try coming early (or a bit after 1PM) and maybe try getting a calzone. Or hey – delivery!

They also serve beer here. They’re open til 10PM every night so you could come by here and hang out.

On the far wall I noticed all of these photos. I didn’t quite get the connection until I noticed that these were all pictures of people named “Pauly”!

Jake mostly let me choose the slices, but we agreed on them all first. These are the first two: (left) Pesto Chicken with ricotta and Chicken Bacon Ranch. These are all thin NY style pizzas. Of the two the pesto chicken was my favorite. There was no tomato sauce on either of these pies but instead they have mozzarella, ricotta and garlic. The pesto chicken was really delicious – I like that it’s dotted with pesto and not just spread all over in a thin layer. I wish it had more ricotta though!

The chicken bacon ranch I thought was just okay – Jake liked it more than I did (probably because there’s bacon on it). I wasn’t too into the ranch on it, the pizza seemed a bit too dry to me in this case.

We choose two OTHER non-tomato sauce pizzas, funny enough. Jake LOVES tomato sauce so it’s weird we didn’t try any with sauce on it. Jake ended up asking for a cup of marinara sauce on the side (it was cold) and we ended up dipping our pizzas and leftover crust into the sauce. Jake really, really, really liked their sauce (more than our beloved Milo’s, he said) and the sweetness and blend of seasonings it had. I liked it, too, but not as much as Jake did.

The two slices above are (left) BBQ Chicken and another slice with pepperoni, meatball, sausage and ricotta. The BBQ chicken has a nice almost smokey flavor from the BBQ sauce and I liked that one a little more than the meatzilla slice. Since I tend to shy away from a lot of toppings on my slices these days it was a bit of overload to me – but I did like the meatball and the ricotta!

I pointed out to Jake that we didn’t even get a slice with tomato sauce on it and he remedied that situation by order a slice of plain cheese.

Here’s the underside so you can see how the crust was. It had a nice crispness on the outer edges. The middle/first bite was a little soft/soggy but the rest of the slice had a nice crunch/crispness that I adore in pizza. The cheese slice was pretty good but I was getting full at that point and only had a few bites. All of the slices were good in their own way. I don’t think this place topples over my favorite Milo’s Pizzeria but I have to say it’s pretty good – and perhaps my new “go to” pizza spot for this area! I know I could get Jake to come here again since he was seriously taking about that sauce AGAIN later that evening. Whenever he really loves something, he talks about it over and over again. 🙂

We celebrated our anniversary FOR REALS a couple of days later…

Pauly’s Pizza Joint
6780 Miramar Rd., Ste 105    
(858) 566-8646