Judging it for what it is - a little pizza joint in a strip mall - Tony's has its merits! Starting with Tony, or at least the guy I'm assuming is Tony, who looks, acts and sounds exactly like the owner of a little Italian shop should. Also, I hear the pizza's awesome. I didn't order any because frankly it didn't look so hot, but looks can be deceiving, so maybe you should go with the majority and give it a try.
The biggest upside is the overall family-pizza-joint vibe (http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/N8NB7lMryKMMf6SJUvzYVQ?select=LZusXj-HHiKmOka7LJRWig) with the plasticky plaid tablecloths, paper menus, plastic-wrapped silverware (http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/N8NB7lMryKMMf6SJUvzYVQ?select=1iDWYCYkE_vaO8mqilL6yw), high school girls as servers, and the aforementioned Tony. I was hoping the food would be amazing just for the satisfying juxtaposition it would make, but unfortunately it wasn't really my cup of tea.
It was more like a cup of McFlurry, in that food-wise this place reminded me of McDonald's: each bite makes you crave another, but not because it's really good - more because it's addictively bad. Now, I am known to succumb to the occasional McDouble, so I'm not totally writing this place off, but I'll start with the biggest losers first:
The spinach & mushroom ravioli looked like a huge plate of gravy (http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/N8NB7lMryKMMf6SJUvzYVQ?select=EgjY5YIlreRw3gp3BfSBZA), and my hubs had to poke around to find the raviolis. Any mushroomy goodness that might have been hiding inside the ravs were totally overwhelmed by alfredo sauce.
My Italian wedding soup looked good but was bizarrely sweet (http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/N8NB7lMryKMMf6SJUvzYVQ?select=bU2W7OqfM7yRNjADxwJGzg). I tried adding some salt and pepper to counteract the sweetness, but it didn't have much of an impact and I couldn't get past the weird flavor. No one else at the table wanted more than a bite either, so it went half eaten.
On to the winners:
The table favorite was the penne in vodka cream sauce (http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/N8NB7lMryKMMf6SJUvzYVQ?select=xSNaPQ7o0SVAQFP-3OU2SA). This was my McDouble. It was also everyone else's, and there was still so much of it that more than half went home in a doggy bag. It wasn't an impressive dish by any means, just a pile of pasta with a pretty one-note sauce over it, but it was definitely hard to stop eating it.
The bread basket they bring to start includes what I've learned is called "tomato pie," thick pizza dough slathered with pizza sauce, all of it cold. I found this pretty gross, yet ate a large slice of it. Sigh. Anyhow, other eaters were relatively enthusiastic about the tomato pie and wished we'd gotten more of it. (http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/N8NB7lMryKMMf6SJUvzYVQ?userid=Oe4LLtN1tn46sDUM-BSX_A)
I have a feeling I'll end up back here, but mostly because there's not a whole lot to choose from in this area, and everybody likes an excuse to eat McDoubles. read more