A surprise can be good or bad, right? The Happy Italian Pizzeria, a modest-looking restaurant on Jefferson Highway in Harahan, was a good surprise for me. On the advice of the Where NOLA Eats Facebook group members, we walked in to see the cooks at work in the open kitchen, sliding pizzas into a giant oven. We planned to order a pizza, maybe a salad and ice tea.

Then, glancing around at the tables, we saw folks digging into generous plates of cannelloni and broiled fish. We sat down in the no-frills dining room of the family restaurant owned by Lenny and Sandy Minutillo, who operate it with Sandy's son Gavin Labourdette at the stove with his stepfather; and desserts and salad dressings mostly created by Lenny's daughter, Laura Minutillo.