Salad Days at Pizza Mizza

I’m sure most of us have pulled this stunt-you order a salad with your pizza hoping you might slightly balance the scales of nutrition. The good news is that at Pizza Mizza (140 South Hope Ave., La Cumbre Plaza, 564-3900, pizzamizza.com), that salad can be as tasty as the pie. Next time you eat in or order out, try the Mediterranean. Let’s start with the dressing. Generally, pizza places ladle from a several-gallon tub something oleaginous and salty, at best. Pizza Mizza’s Italian, however, seems freshly made with real oil and vinegar and herbs (if it’s not, I don’t want to know).You get to put as much of that as you want on, too, so it’s not too gloppy over crisp mixed greens, romaine lettuce, grape tomatoes, diced Italian salami, provolone cheese, artichoke hearts, green and black olives, and cucumbers. The produce tastes like it might have been at a farm recently, not just like a refrigerator. Of course, the pizzas are fine, too, and embody the fresh aesthetic, even if they no longer have the movie title names; it did always seem a bit odd to have to ask, “I’d like large Nuts, please.” You will go nuts for the Mediterranean salad, though, even if you have to order the almost as good Santa Barbara salad to have pistachios.