too many choices

My wife and I planned to go to the Paramount for their movie classics night (including the mighty Wurlitzer) last night, proceeded by dinner at one of the numerous places in uptown we've been wanting to try, like Flora, or Mua. Or maybe someplace on the way, like Camino. But because of the rain, we decided to skip the movie and stay a little closer to home.

image from The Oakland Berkeley Journal

There aren't any new restaurants for us to try in Montclair (though several we love, like Italian Colors and Montclair Bistro), so we headed over to Glenview. We considered Bellanico, but passed because of the very limited vegetarian options. We settled on Marzano and were fortunate enough to get seats at the bar near the pizza oven, reminiscent of our trip to Sidebar.

Marzano has a very different feel than Sidebar. It's small, and crowded to the point where wait staff must have to take dancing lessons to get around. The food is very good, and there were plenty of non-meat options for me. It's nicely decorated, with big glass bottles serving as lamps, and what I suspect are manufactured beams decorated to look like normal solid wood beams.

We had a nice bottle of wine, the oven-roasted asparagus, and a margherhita pizza. Dessert was especially good, something chocolate. Watching the food be prepped and the pizza oven be tended was fun, and it's a joy to eat surrounded by people who are happy and enjoying themselves. We'll definitely eat there again, but there are too many new restaurants (or in some cases, new to us) for us to try first.