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Italian Tomato Restaurant
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Private Lot
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take Away:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Good For:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Noise Level:
- Quiet
- Caters:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
13 reviews for Italian Tomato Restaurant
13 reviews in English
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Review from Steve F.
Surrey, BC
12/7/2011
I have been coming to the Italian Tomato since they opened. It is a close lunch for me as I work in the area. For the most part, the service is good one day and poor the next. Today we had a new server, she was attentive, sincere and very pleasant (and pretty too!)
The food is very good and I feel the prices are fair for what you get. The atmosphere is somewhat plain and the music is low. Today we were nice and cozy warm in the restaurant. Sometimes it is fairly chilly.
All in all, I like this restaurant. Authentic flavours and today's server will get me back, she got a very nice tip from my wife and I.
The outside grounds could use some tlc! -
Review from Michael N.
Richmond, BC
4/16/2012
This place is really hit and miss in my experience. I have been here a half a dozen times and have found that they lack a service quality. Every time I have been here, you are told that you'll have to wait for a table. With only 3 tables out of 30 filled this kind of starts the meal off to a poor start. The servers are hit and miss as well. The restaurant would have been rated higher if the service was improved.
The saving grace at this restaurant is the food. The quality and presentation is just like you would expect in Italy. The prices are a little high but you are guaranteed to go home with a box of food because the portions are massive. -
Review from Chris E.
1/27/2012
Have been working in British Columbia for 3 days and, on the night before flying back to the States, decided to eat at this little Italian restaurant. The staff were nice and the environment was OK (not too good and not to bad). We ordered lasagna and were shocked at the size of the portions. I ate about 25% of the food and had the rest put in a take away box....I'll probably never eat it because it was too mushy and cheesy. It's an OK place made all the better by the pleasant kids who work there. Close to the airport and in the middle of a group of mid-level hotels (Hampton Inn, Holidat Inn Express, etc.)
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Review from Neil M.
Vancouver, BC
7/11/2011 1 Check-in Here
Good food, good service, hardly anyone there when we arrived, then they got a group of 54 people....but they seemed to handle it fine. The linguine with seafood was excellent, think it was called the Mamma Mia. My friend had a cream sauce with chicken and tomatoes.
Tiramisu was awesome..... -
Review from Robin S.
6/1/2011
Just visiting while waiting to get on a cruise ship, we walked to this place from our hotel.
Food was average, although the portions are huge. Ridiculously huge.
Atmosphere is a bit lacking, probably because it was almost empty. Service was good. -
Review from murat E.
Richmond, BC
10/3/2010
Horrible service, horrible everything.
I received the horrible customer service ever in this restaurant. We were passing by here quite many times with my wife and wanted to give a try on a Saturday night, for a special dinner. Once we entered the place, we were asked to sit on an isolated, dark table although there were lots of better tables available. When I asked whether they were reserved, the girl told me they weren't, rather it was because of their shift they are asking visitors sit on distinct areas in restaurant at different times. Since it made no sense to not be able to sit on a good table once it is available, I insisted and we were able to choose our table after quite a bit of discussion.
I used to go to Anton's place and I am accustomed to large portions of pasta in an Italian restaurant and thought it was going to be the same for this. But when I looked at the portions in other tables, they were pretty small compared to what I used to get. And the prices!! Oh my, a plain -small- pasta plate starting from 16 bucks although I could get twice as much of a portion with lots of add-ons in Anton's place!
So we decided to start off with a bit of pizza and move to other stuff later. When waiter came for order, we told this and he said it is no problem (which shouldn't be right?)
Two minutes later, he came back and told us that we had to order at least X dollar value food to be able to stay there (although we told pizza was just our starter)! And that was it. We decided to leave immediately as it was no pleasure left to try to stay there (we were being politely kicked out because of our order in a way). The guy even asked for the money of a crappy diet coke which hasn't been touched. We literally threw the money and escaped from there immediately.
The night ended up in a steak house where we got the service we were looking for. Even though we paid more than what we were looking to eat, it was very much worth it with the service and everything. Going to a restaurant is all about how you are treated at the end of the day, isn't it? -
Review from Marjorie D.
Vancouver, BC
11/13/2010
I think my dinner experience here was ruined by their not-too-impressive looking web site. Anyhow, I went with the expectation of the food being as delicious as it sounded and left as unimpressed as I was with the web site. The restaurant is spacious but kind of bleh looking. Really, those brown walls and lack of interesting decor don't make the food as appealing as the web site (and that's saying a lot considering I already slammed the site). Reservations were recommended but I expected the restaurant to be busier on a Friday night. Our waiter seemed quite hurried but took a while to get to our table. Understandable. There are way too many things on the menu anyway so it's all quite overwhelming for a first-timer. But hey, who needs water, anyway?
As others have mentioned, the portions are huge. Perhaps up to about 2-3 portions on one plate, depending on the type of pasta ordered. Except for the one man I saw eating a 10-12" thin crust pizza, everyone around us who ate pasta had enough leftover for takeout. After we ordered, we were served four slices of cold, yet tasty bread with butter packets.
I had the gnocchi with the petto di pollo (#17) cream sauce. The gnocchi was perfectly cooked but the chicken and cream sauce were not so great. In fact, the chicken seemed pre-cooked or microwaved and reminded me of the chicken pieces served at Subway. I probably wouldn't have had such a problem finishing the dish if the sauce wasn't so rich. They don't serve up a huge mound of gnocchi like they do with the long pasta.
The minimum charge per person is $15.95. Why?? What if I didn't want all this pasta? Seriously, they need to amp up the atmosphere in the restaurant and the look of the website, make a few improvements in the food (like don't make the portions so huge), remove the minimum charge and maybe people will give better reviews. I should have just ordered take out... elsewhere. -
Review from Claudia L.
Burnaby, BC
12/24/2008
The crappier, Canadian version of Olive Garden: unimpressed by the cold pasta and biotch of a waitress. Besides big portions, Italian Tomato is big on nothing else but their glasses of water.
One of the few Italian restaurants in Richmond. First mover advantage? Yes. Am I going back? No. People come for the big plates but in the end it works out all the same. There's a minimum charge of $15/person or something to that effect. I don't appreciate be forced to eat a lot of crappy food.
Food: Big menu with lots of dry chicken and bland tasting dishes. Besides the traditional lip-smackin' lasagna, our family ordered 6 dishes (pasta and main) and eeeanhh *shrug*.
Atmosphere: Picture Sammy J's but barer and with more lighting.
Service: Eating in a Western Restaruant = Good Service? = Forgot I'm in Richmond = Hopeful Thinking. *Thumbs down*. -
Review from Joanne L.
Richmond, BC
4/7/2010
My relative told me this place was awesome, huge portions and good food, so I decided to go try myself despite all the so-so reviews. Well, the reviews were correct, Italian Tomato just serves gigantic portions.
The restaurant itself was quite nice, a very cozy atmosphere with open kitchen and bar with 2 large TVs. There is upstairs seating, outdoor seating and various stepped areas inside. We sat in the hardwood stepped up area and each time the waitress walked by it was like a mini earthquake, and quite distracting.
A basket of bread arrived soon after we ordered, although it wasn't freshly baked or warm, it was still good. We had the whole wheat linguine with Alla Mediterraneo (fresh tomato, spinach and feta cheese) and spinach fettuccine with Alla Borina (spicy Italian sausage, mushroom and peas). Both the dishes were just alright, not as good as it sounded, there were very little tomato for such a large dish. The pasta itself was made well, not too hard, not too soft and not dry.
We clearly didn't finish all of it and each table had to take their dishes home. The minimum charge per person was $15.95, so we can't even order one dish to share. For the price, the quality wasn't there, but the quantity sure was, we have lunch for the next day.
If you are really hungry and want pasta but don't want to cook yourself, then by all means go there, but if you want quality, even the Old Spaghetti is better. Oh they have Granville Island beer specials on hockey game nights, decent deal. -
Review from Anna L.
Richmond, BC
4/12/2011
I don't know if I'm just an easy sell with Italian food but I quite like Italian Tomato. I'm a huge fan of their hot wings and the gnocchi with chicken in cream sauce or the linquini with olive oil, chicken and feta (and vice versa!). For me, the sauces are always well seasoned, especially with a little freshly ground pepper. The portions are also quite large, always more than enough for another meal.
They tend to close quite early, in my opinion, typically around 9:30 or 10 and strangely, they've moved to using powdery parmesan, rather than the hand held shredder with parmesan they had when they first opened.
Service can be a little uneven, though my friend and I were fascinated with one waitress who seemed like the human embodiment of Eeyore. Still, service is always polite if occasionally a little slow.
I've never had to make a reservation but I typically go on a week night with up to two friends. -
Review from Angela L.
5/6/2009
I came here with my family and had not been forewarned of the immensly large portion sizes. We started with a delightfully crispy fried calamari, spinach leaves topped with pinenuts and crumbled egg, well balanced proscuitto with (but not wrapped) melon, and slightly soggy tomato bocconccini. With all that in our tummies (and probably even if we hadn't just eaten all that), we were all quite shocked when we were each brought our mountainous platters of pasta (around $20 each), but quickly got over it by asking for share plates (and take out boxes). It was actually a lot of fun trying so many different types of pasta and sauces. I'd highly recommend family style for big groups. FYI: The night's winner was hands down my sister's spaghetti carbonara.
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Review from James P.
Vancouver, BC
5/26/2009
i like the pasta here, and i love their white sauces, except they're very very oily... i like #24... and the Marco Polo...
this place ranks 2nd, behind Anton's but ahead of Some Kinda Pasta... it ranks 2nd becoz the shrimp / salmon / meat overall are very very tiny... and it's not as saucy as Anton's... -
Review from Joanne W.
Richmond, BC
4/14/2011
The dishes were huge, but the taste was sooo awful that I definitely would never go back!
