By Frank Sabatini Jr.

An important change occurred recently at Bazinga Eatery since it opened in July as San Diego’s first and only macaroni and cheese house.

A few months into the operation, owner Leila Oualha took some heat for under-cheesing the roux that serves as the vital base for a variety of enticing mac ‘n cheese options dominating the menu. The criticism, she admits, was valid and it prompted her to enhance the sauce with stronger cheeses in bigger quantities.

The key, she says, was replacing mild cheddar with a sharper aged version, which joins forces with white cheddar and Fontina. Indeed, the revised recipe is spot-on tangy and creamy. And depending on what dish you order, the comfort meter goes up from there as other curds get added in.

This is Oualha’s first restaurant venture, which materialized after immigrating to San Diego from Tunisia and earning her doctorate in business administration from California International Business University. While doing so, she helped a friend manage a local French bistro and became interested in the hospitality industry. She would later visit a mac ‘n cheese restaurant in New York called S’Mac before deciding to replicate the concept here, in the space that formerly housed Sea Rocket Bistro.

An avid fan of the popular CBS show, “The Big Bang Theory,” she derived the name of her eatery from its main character, Sheldon Cooper, who brought “bazinga” into the American vernacular as a fooled-ya expression he commonly uses after pranking his roommates.

“The word isn’t related to food, but I think it’s very catchy,” says Oualha.

Bazinga features two dining rooms that are sparsely decorated, yet warm on the eyes. Seating options are plentiful, ranging from high tops and low tops to communal picnic tables and bar perches.

With oodles of noodles cloaked in different cheeses ahead of us, it seemed necessary to start our meal with salads. My companion raved over his medley of red beets, field greens and lemon-infused goat cheese while I whipped through a simple kale Caesar made memorable by an addicting dressing accented with stone-ground mustard. Oualha would do well if she bottled and sold the stuff.

From the “small bites” category, we ordered with initial skepticism the mac ‘n cheese pizza, fearing that it might be too carb-heavy. But the 8-inch pie went down like a breeze.

The house-made crust resembled thin focaccia, and with a yeasty flavor to boot. It teamed naturally with classic mac ‘n cheese spread evenly over the top along with several slices of pepperoni offering bursts of spiciness. If you like mac ‘n cheese with ham or chorizo, for instance, and topped with breadcrumbs, this is pretty much the same thing in rearranged form. The only ingredient I would add if trying this at home is a thin layer of stewed tomatoes to give it a tinge of acidity.

Other starters include mac ‘n cheese balls, house-cut french fries and a “four cheese sampler,” which is actually a quartet of noodles kissed separately by four different sauces (smoked Gouda, Irish cheddar, Gruyere and pepper jack). It’s not an actual cheese plate as some might assume.

The entrée list features 10 mac ‘n cheese choices, including a vegan version using Daiya cheese and one for vegetarians using herb ricotta, cheddar, Fontina and various veggies.

For us, the decision-making process became even tougher when considering a recipe mingling beer cheese sauce with bratwurst and red cabbage, or another combining lemongrass cheese sauce with Asiago, lump crab, leeks and white corn.

Choosing none of the above, we were delivered to mac ‘n cheese heaven nonetheless. My companion’s “brie and steak” was divinely rich and as comforting as coming out of a cold rain to a warm blanket. Juices oozing from the marinated steak on top formed something of a stroganoff sauce as they met with the hot, creamy brie. The dish was laced with cremini mushrooms and balsamic onions, resulting in a super-flavorful outcome that filtered down to the very last corkscrew noodle.

I ordered the “French onion” with hopes that it would taste like fondue. It very much did, thanks to the addition of Gruyere cheese in the recipe. Served in a cast iron skillet, the caramelized onions strewn throughout tasted right at home. And the cheese mixture maintained its sauciness after everything cooled down — a telling sign of a balanced roux.

Despite the gourmet twists that our mothers and school cafeterias never relied upon in their mac ‘n cheese recipes, Oualha managed to send our taste buds down a nostalgic road that I oftentimes find bumpy in so many other restaurants that simply melt cheese onto pasta.

Like all of us, she’s been a longtime fan of this American classic and understands the warm memories it evokes, adding that “Everyone loves it. And it turns us into little kids somehow.”

—Contact Frank Sabatini Jr. at [email protected].