Tony Roma’s (2)

Last New Year’s Eve, we revisited Tony Roma’s again for a small celebration with family. As I wrote in my first review, I have always been a big fan of Tony Roma’s ribs and other dishes, in general. What’s better than having some Western food for Christmas and New Year? 🙂 As usual, we wanted to go to the outlet in Senayan because it is really close from our house, but then we found out that it was already closed down and moved to Gandaria City. We made a phone call trying to make reservation, but they said no reservation was allowed for that day. So without further hesitation, we immediately proceeded to Gandaria City, hoping that we would get a table for 6 of us.

When we arrived, there were so many guests outside waiting to be seated. Yep, there was waiting list already and the restaurant was full-packed. Luckily, after waiting for less than 3 minutes, we got a table ready, because mostly people in waiting list were just couple so they had to wait longer to get 2-4 seats table. When we entered the restaurant, I was surprised of how weird the interior was. It looks more like a Chinese restaurant to me, rather than Western-feel that I always got from any other Tony Roma’s outlets. The interior is dominated with black and red, and what’s with the carpet? We were brought to our table, a round table, didn’t like it at all. And also, the place wasn’t really big, but again it seems like they tried to use any available spaces for additional tables. If they put some considerably bigger Western people in mind when they designed the seating layout, they would have spaced out the tables farther. 

As we were seated, I noticed that just on the right side of the restaurant, they have the outdoor area open for dining, too. Since our table was just located near the connecting door, it was really unpleasant every time someone opened the door. It was windy that night so it was just uncomfortable. I would prefer them to just keep the door opened the whole time. Seriously, my impression about the place wasn’t so good.

Later, we were handed the menu book, just a two-page booklet. Apparently they were serving just certain menu mentioned in the booklet, which contains of set menu or a la carte ones. 

Honestly, I was disappointed to see this in the menu. When I go to Tony Roma’s, I always ordered the full loaf of this because I just can’t get enough of it! However, for this special occasion, they only serve half loaf and costs more expensive, too. 

Our favorite Tony Roma’s salad, still very nice!

Love, love, love this!

We chose the Blue Ridge Smokies sauce and we were thrilled of the taste. Unlike other ribs that I ate recently, their ribs are totally heaven. Lots of meat, smaller bones, tender and smooth meats, I could even tear those just with fork. Tony Roma’s clearly is still the winner for any kind of ribs 🙂

In the end, we just asked one of the waiters for fun, whether we still got the complimentary bread or not just like the old days. And turned out that they forgot (!!) and a moment later a bucket of fresh bread was served for us. 

Very nice, although I wonder what’s the difference between this and fruit punch. 

It was my zillionth time visiting Tony Roma’s because I had never been disappointed by their food, service, and everything. Only this time, I felt a bit “cheated” because I didn’t get what I expected from their usual awesomeness. Honestly, the place already turned me off, and the air conditioner didn’t seem to be doing its function, limited food choices, and careless service just added my disappointment. I never experienced this kind of thing in any Tony Roma’s outlets before, so I just felt it was sad. I had to give credit too, for the waiters who were very helpful and friendly, despite of the carelessness, they were still nice. And despite of everything bad that I mentioned above, clearly they still maintain their quality of food because those are really, really delicious and worth every cents that we spent.