Three Tomatoes (Ryan)
A nice-looking place on Church Street, with the main dining area downstairs and an outdoor seating area. We relocated here after the initial selection, Anything's Pasta-ble, turned out to be more of a deli/cafe than a sit-down restaurant. Hallmarks of the style included using a lot of sun-dried tomatos, and evidently cooking over an open-fire / hearth cooking. We asked the waitress what "Trattoria" meant (because it showed up a lot on the menu and we thought it might have something to do with how the food was cooked), but she didn't know.
I ordered the "Tortellini Rustica", which was tortellini with peas, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatos, and a subtly sweet sauce. What influenced me to order this over the more standard tortellini was a) that normal tortellini is, well, boring, and I wanted something more unique to this restaurant, and b) the waitress said the sauce was based off of the same kind of cheese that they make cannoli out of. Having just tried my first cannoli a few days ago (and loved it!) I was easily swayed. I did request that the peas be held though, as I don't really like the idea of peas and pasta going together.
The course was preceded by some lovely bread and olive oil. No spices, but plenty of garlic. Too much, really, according to both of us. The bread was excellent dipping bread though; the flaw was in the sauce :-).
After what we guesstimated as 25 minutes (a note was made to clock this more closely in the future) our food arrived. Promptly, Ty pointed out that there were PEAS in my pasta. I ate around them, and decided to put the negative points on "service" rather than "food". There was some debate on who exactly was at fault (and, correspondingly, what category should be docked). The pasta itself was pretty good though; the sauce reminded me vaguely of alfredo (as it should, being cheese-based) yet had its own unique flavor. Part of that I attribute to the mushrooms -- though I like them a lot, I don't habitually put them into my pasta (though I will not shy to do so, if they're around). Skipped out on dessert. We mostly agreed on ratings, though we differed over atmosphere.
Quality of Food: 6. Good quality Italian food, but nothing really special. The base tortellini is about the same quality as dining hall food (ie fairly average), but the sauce was quite good. The sun-dried tomatoes in particular made a nice taste addition, quite different from regular tomatoes. Also the garlic, as mentioned, was overdone in the appetizer.
Quality of Service: 4. My dock here is from, mostly, the peas. However, as Ty pointed out, the waitress never came around to ask us how we were doing (except right at the end, to give us a check), so even if we'd had a complaint we wouldn't have been able to say anything. She did notice, and apparently remember, the peas on my plate on this last go-round. Of course, by then it was too late to do anything about it.
Price/Value: 4. Overpriced, of course a standard risk on church street venues. But that is no excuse. We agreed that probably our meals were worth about 10$, not the 12-13$ we were charged. For that price, I think at least my bread should be refilled (we ran out, and it was never replaced). Same price at olive garden gets you way more food. For the record, both of us would have put Olive Garden as about an 8.5 (total) on the scale, for reference.
Atmosphere: 4. Ty says 5, I'll let her elaborate on why she felt it should be that way. I felt like minimal effort was made outdoors beyond throwing silverware and plates on the table. Plus this homeless guy was shouting through a lot of the meal from a little distance away. Granted they have no control over that...but it was still a mood-dampener. Both of us snuck downstairs to check out the atmosphere there. Ty actually had to go to the bathroom; I just faked it :-). Anyway I wasn't too impressed with down there either. Architecture with stone arches, kind of like at our macaroni grill at home, but not a lot of decor on the walls to play down the subterranean cave aspect. Another thing I was thinking was that there was nothing that made the restaurant stand out as Italian, or to make it unique at all. The decor/atmosphere could easily have been transplanted out of a Russian or Indian cuisine restaurant, for all the liveliness it displayed.
On a side note, there were a good number of vegetarian options, always appreciated by this contributor. I felt like I had a lot to choose from, which is definitely not the case at, say, denny's.
So using a 4.5 atmosphere (our average), we rated Three Tomatoes as a 4.775. In short, not eating there again!
In any event both of us enjoyed playing the food critic and discussing all these points as we ate.
I ordered the "Tortellini Rustica", which was tortellini with peas, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatos, and a subtly sweet sauce. What influenced me to order this over the more standard tortellini was a) that normal tortellini is, well, boring, and I wanted something more unique to this restaurant, and b) the waitress said the sauce was based off of the same kind of cheese that they make cannoli out of. Having just tried my first cannoli a few days ago (and loved it!) I was easily swayed. I did request that the peas be held though, as I don't really like the idea of peas and pasta going together.
The course was preceded by some lovely bread and olive oil. No spices, but plenty of garlic. Too much, really, according to both of us. The bread was excellent dipping bread though; the flaw was in the sauce :-).
After what we guesstimated as 25 minutes (a note was made to clock this more closely in the future) our food arrived. Promptly, Ty pointed out that there were PEAS in my pasta. I ate around them, and decided to put the negative points on "service" rather than "food". There was some debate on who exactly was at fault (and, correspondingly, what category should be docked). The pasta itself was pretty good though; the sauce reminded me vaguely of alfredo (as it should, being cheese-based) yet had its own unique flavor. Part of that I attribute to the mushrooms -- though I like them a lot, I don't habitually put them into my pasta (though I will not shy to do so, if they're around). Skipped out on dessert. We mostly agreed on ratings, though we differed over atmosphere.
Quality of Food: 6. Good quality Italian food, but nothing really special. The base tortellini is about the same quality as dining hall food (ie fairly average), but the sauce was quite good. The sun-dried tomatoes in particular made a nice taste addition, quite different from regular tomatoes. Also the garlic, as mentioned, was overdone in the appetizer.
Quality of Service: 4. My dock here is from, mostly, the peas. However, as Ty pointed out, the waitress never came around to ask us how we were doing (except right at the end, to give us a check), so even if we'd had a complaint we wouldn't have been able to say anything. She did notice, and apparently remember, the peas on my plate on this last go-round. Of course, by then it was too late to do anything about it.
Price/Value: 4. Overpriced, of course a standard risk on church street venues. But that is no excuse. We agreed that probably our meals were worth about 10$, not the 12-13$ we were charged. For that price, I think at least my bread should be refilled (we ran out, and it was never replaced). Same price at olive garden gets you way more food. For the record, both of us would have put Olive Garden as about an 8.5 (total) on the scale, for reference.
Atmosphere: 4. Ty says 5, I'll let her elaborate on why she felt it should be that way. I felt like minimal effort was made outdoors beyond throwing silverware and plates on the table. Plus this homeless guy was shouting through a lot of the meal from a little distance away. Granted they have no control over that...but it was still a mood-dampener. Both of us snuck downstairs to check out the atmosphere there. Ty actually had to go to the bathroom; I just faked it :-). Anyway I wasn't too impressed with down there either. Architecture with stone arches, kind of like at our macaroni grill at home, but not a lot of decor on the walls to play down the subterranean cave aspect. Another thing I was thinking was that there was nothing that made the restaurant stand out as Italian, or to make it unique at all. The decor/atmosphere could easily have been transplanted out of a Russian or Indian cuisine restaurant, for all the liveliness it displayed.
On a side note, there were a good number of vegetarian options, always appreciated by this contributor. I felt like I had a lot to choose from, which is definitely not the case at, say, denny's.
So using a 4.5 atmosphere (our average), we rated Three Tomatoes as a 4.775. In short, not eating there again!
In any event both of us enjoyed playing the food critic and discussing all these points as we ate.
posted by BenesHacha at 9:42 PM
1 Comments:
Yeah who wants peas with their Italian food - sheesh
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