If you stumble upon Pasquale On Prospect - which is actually on the main drag of La Jolla, the main place you want to be on a San Diego golf trip - you’ll assume it’s a typical tourist trap.

It looks like a tourist trap. It has the overeager host of a tourist trap. It even has the live old corny music of a tourist trap. Place this restaurant in Times Square and the locals would be avoiding it like a Cuba Gooding Jr. movie, while people from Kansas got pulled in.

Only Pasquale’s isn’t one of those places that serves microwave dinner entrees for $25.

It’s actually one of the better Italian restaurants in all of San Diego. Even better, it lets you eat late. On a recent Friday night, I was served dinner when I walked in at 11 p.m.

On the East Coast or in many parts of Europe, this wouldn’t be any big deal. But many restaurants on the West Coast still think anything after 9 p.m. is shockingly late.

Pasquale’s just invites you in and offers you a good glass of wine, many under $7.

The parmigiano cheese on the arugula salad is really good and the agnolotti pasta filled with lobster is excellent. The fresh pizzas don’t cost much more than Domino’s. No wonder Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Ahmad Rashad sometimes hang out here late into the night.

Their picture is on the wall - just like at a tourist trap. Only, this one’s from a New York Times story.

Pasquale surprises like that.

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