A SLICE OF SHEER SATISFACTION.

Byline: Larry Lipson Restaurant Critic

Pizzas, pastas and salads. Today's All-American fare that used to be considered Italian is exemplified at the newest food purveyor on the southwest corner of Van Nuys and Ventura boulevards, Robbie Mac's.

Named for owner Robbie MacMurray, this is a second location, the first being in Studio City on Riverside Drive for the past couple of years.

The reason for its popularity becomes apparent the moment you see and bite into a Robbie Mac pizza.

It's relatively thin-crusted, made with cornmeal, good tasting and lives up to anyone's description of its dough as crust, providing plenty of at-the-tooth crunch from the first to the last mouthful.

Of course, like most pizza places that mainly sell their baked dough creations as main courses rather than appetizers or snacks, the toppings cannot be sparse.

Consequently, even if you order the California cheeseless pizza from the ``gourmet'' selection and the kitchen's major recipe bow to ``health,'' you'll find it packed on top with a multitude of small cubes of grilled chicken, lots of fresh garlic, red onion and mushrooms and a sprinkling of basil. Yep, it's a meal.

So, it seems, are they all. Yet, if I ever order Robbie Mac's combo pizza again, I'll have them hold the raw green bell peppers.

Already gratifying from its harmonious topping of pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, olives and onions, the spray of strips of uncooked green peppers really tend to overwhelm.

But surprise of surprises. Just when you think that everything is over the top and much heavier than you need, the ``white spinach'' pizza here with three different cheeses (ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan) plus sauteed spinach (with garlic in olive oil) and roasted red peppers actually will seem substantially lighter than either the combo or the cheeseless pie.

Of course, there are those untried designer jobbies consisting of such other ``faves'' as an artichoke heart (with mushrooms, garlic and basil) pizza, one with sun-dried tomatoes and roasted garlic, a barbecued chicken and red onion pie with cilantro, and a triple mushroom effort (shiitake, portobello and enoki) with chives, garlic and carrots.

Also, some 20 listed toppings allow plenty of experimentation on regular 14-inch and 16-inch pizzas that range from $10 and $11 when topped with cheese only, to $13 and $14 when daubed with three topping ingredients.

Perhaps some can be lighter by design.

Moving over to pastas, forget light and airy stuffed ones at Robbie Mac's. These versions would tend to make any cholesterol-sensitive customer shy away in horror. They're big and rich, full, creamy, cheesy recipes.

Wild mushroom ravioli ($7.95) for example, comes swamped in a mushroom cream sauce that will make you forever forget the word ``delicate.''

With thoughts of clog and sog in mind, a couple of ravioli - actually pretty good in taste and possibly not excessively ponderous if left unsauced - are definitely my limit on this dish.

And the house lasagna ($6.95) is similarly a stomach filler.

Drenched in tomato sauce and to its credit, not gummy like some renditions, it provides a quick fuel fix for hunger at a reasonable price.

But whether every dish is to your liking or not, there's a basic, all-around likable quality about Robbie Mac's.

It possesses an honest, up-front, no-holds-barred character.

For example, the little garlic rolls baked here and called ``garlic knots'' are delicious ($2.99 for six, $3.99 per dozen) and come with numerous dishes.

Coated with garlic, butter and parmesan, they are symbolic in that creating overall assertive taste satisfactions here is deemed more important than anything else.

And why shouldn't it be?

Salads are refreshing companions to the pizzas and pastas; not particularly complex, reasonably effective.

They add to the suggestion of conscientiousness.

And even when it comes to desserts, Robbie Mac's brings in good stuff, like nifty regular and white chocolate chip cookies ($1 each) and moist, melty, chocolate-raspberry-hazelnut cake ($2.99 a wedge).

It looks like this busy Valley corner finally may have found a long-term resident.

THE FACTS

The restaurant: Robbie Mac's Pizza.

Where: 14502 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. (Also at 12510 Riverside Drive, Studio City.)

Phone: [phone]. (Studio City: [phone].)

When: Open for coffee, snacks and meals from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday.

Recommended items: Pizzas (spinach with roasted red pepper and three cheeses, house combo of pepperoni and sausage with mushrooms and olives, cheeseless grilled chicken and garlic with red onion and mushrooms), Mediterranean salad with roasted red peppers and feta cheese, chocolate-raspberry-hazelnut cake.

How much: Starters and salads from $3 to $7, pizzas and sandwiches from $6 to $16, pizza by the slice $2.25 each, pastas from $6 to $9, desserts $3 each, cookies $1 each. No alcohol. All major credit cards.

Our rating: Three stars for food; Three stars for value.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Owner Robbie MacMurray, left, and partner Paul Finestone with some of the menu items available at Robbie Mac's.

John McCoy/Daily News