Nicco's Cucina (Ryan)

This is a nice little cucina (whatever that means) next to the big movie theater out in williston. I was not blown away so I don't really have anything to say in the main body here :-). On to the major points

Quality of Food: 7. It was pretty good but not like "whoah". The bread and dipping oil was pretty much the same as Tuscan kitchen in taste. Which is to say really good and I probably ate too much of it :-). I got "lasagna quattro formaggi", which to my understanding is four cheese lasagna. This lasagna was HUGE. And the presentation, while interesting, made it kind of difficult to eat (it was on its side, basically). I was too full to even think about ordering desert.

Quality of Service: 6.5. Nothing stood out besides his cool soul patch. I mean he came around, he asked how we were doing, didn't leave us alone for long stretches of time like as happened at Three Tomatoes. If we had needed something fixed he would be there in a reasonable time frame to fix it. Pretty much your average waitstaff I guess.

Value: 6.5. Ok...again a little overpriced here I paid 13 for my lasagna, I think ty did 13 for her chicken alfredo, and comparable sized dishes (and better, for that matter) could be had for like 11 or 12 at olive garden. So a little ehhh here on this one.

Atmosphere: 5.5. They painted the walls... so they at least made an effort. However it was pretty much stone floors, and again privacy was kind of an issue (in that there wasn't really any to speak of). Also we were right next to the computer where the waiters come around and put in the orders and stuff and that was kind of a downer.

So on the whole that rates as a 6.525. That pretty much meshes with our opinions so far -- better than Three Tomatoes, but worse than Tuscan Kitchen.

Tossing the ball to my esteemed sortatwin...

Tuscan Kitchen (Ryan)

Some supplemental comments --

I agree completely on the bread...it was marvelous dipping bread, with an interesting olive oil dipping sauce that was much thicker than the usual array of dipping material. Tasty though, and the garlic was very subtle, unlike the completely overdone garlic at Three Tomatoes.

The waitress was exceptional, very cheery and involved, and when she asked us how the food was it was like she actually genuinely cared whether we liked it or not as opposed to just asking a rote question. Wait times for food nearly cancelled this out though -- even at the end, when we were practically the only people in the restaurant, the dessert took 10 minutes to get there and it's not like they had to bake us a cake or anything. I'm sure that stuff is in the back and they just have to slice it, present it, and then bring it out. My dessert was excellent, a chocolate mousse cake drizzled in chocolate with bits of cheesecake scattered through it. It need not be mentioned that my blood sugar suffered for this, but I did eventually recover.

The place where we were sat was very scenic, lots of wood and glass archictecture to say nothing of the stonework ("Hey that's some really nice stonework", lol) which was also quite good. It was, however, very open and un-private and I'm not sure I cared too much for that. I think it was partly bad luck of the draw but with no walls or dividers or anything, the tables were spaced a little too close together -- you could hear adjacent conversations and that was uncomfortable because it also meant they could hear ours. Not that we were plotting world domination or anything, but it's the principle of the thing ya know? I mean open seating is fine and all but you need to put enough space between tables to give some degree of privacy...and they rather failed on that count.

Pasta...I don't even remember what I had, to be honest. The name, I mean. I think it was called "Harvest Tortellini"? Anyway it was tortellini in some kind of sauce with some assorted oddities in it, notably cranberries, to give it a unique taste. Unique is about all that I can say in favor of this dish. The tortellini was lovely, but the sauce was a major downer. I mean it was a great dish...but just not for me. Not up my alley; I'm sure someone else with more of a taste for that kind of thing would have enjoyed it. So it was good quality, don't get me wrong...I just picked the wrong item off the menu, perhaps. To me the failing of the sauce was mainly that I think they tried to do too much with it, where if they had simplified it a little that would've gone a long way to improving the dish. There was a confusion of flavor, if you will. Which is fine, if one dominates and the others complement it in a nice harmonious blend. But here that was not the case. Too many flavors all vying and no one particular one standing out.

I should observe that I think the bill Ty put out is including the tip for the waitress so I think it was actually a little cheaper than that? 48 sticks in my mind for some reason.

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.

How it works

Voila! Le blog!

I should start with a breakdown of how we decided to do things. Each restaurant is to be judged on 4 categories:

- Quality of Food (weighted 35%)
- Quality of Service (weighted 25%)
- Price / Value (weighted 25%)
- Atmosphere (weighted 15%)

Each one's on a scale, out of 10, the weights are assigned, and then the total is arrived at. Generally, and I may not be quoting exactly here, but the system goes like this:

10 - This is the most amazingly flawless food I have ever eaten, and I would eat here every day, no question.
9 - This was some darn fine cuisine. I would consider eating here every day. An all-around excellent choice.
7/8 - A few flaws. Generally very good food, high quality service, etc.
6 - Eh. A little above average. Nothing to blow you away though. I need some good, solid food, for an ok price. A standard fall-back restaurant. Kind of like Denny's, maybe.
5 - I am neither impressed, nor depressed, by the restaurant.
Anything below five - Why did I eat here? I would never eat here again, it's only a question of HOW bad the food was.