Tony’s NY Pizza – Chantilly, VA

So this place wasn’t my first choice. I tried to go to Pomodoro in Fairfax, VA first but, when I arrived, they were closed for renovations or something. I quickly searched Google Maps and found this place less than two miles away. The first thing that you’ll notice upon stepping into the restaurant is that it smells like an old-folks home; like cleaner and urine. It was very strange. There were a decent amount of patrons at 2:00pm in the afternoon, and the pizza was behind glass. Most of what was on offer looked pretty appetizing. I ordered the “meat calzone” which supposedly comes with four types of cheese, pepperoni, and sausage. It took the restaurant about 15 minutes to cook it. It was, what I would describe as, a “small” calzone. Probably the smallest I’ve had so far. As an interesting thing to note though, I think this is probably the size a calzone “should” be, or traditionally is. I think that I’ve become biased to calzone sizes by eating so many of them over the history of this venture. The calzone was half-moon pocketbook shaped (standard) and it was served with a little cup of marinara sauce. When I cut open the calzone, I noticed that this was another situation where the restaurant used the same toppings they would have put on a pizza. We had pepperoni slices and Italian sausage sliced short-ways. There was plenty of grease from the meat that was contained in the pocket. I also only counted two kinds of cheese, mozzarella and ricotta. Holy crap though! A restaurant that remembered to put ricotta cheese in though! This is becoming a rarity! I thought the calzone was alright… pretty decent as a matter of fact… yet, still, I would describe it like carnival food, as I have so many times before. It didn’t have that chef-quality type of feel/taste to it. Instead, it felt like a vendor at a boardwalk had prepared it en-masse. Not that this makes it bad, but it automatically disqualifies it from a high-score since no personal touches were added to it. The worst part about the meal was the marinara sauce. I am glad that it was served with some, but this stuff just tasted like Spaghetti-O’s sauce. It was very nearly tomato paste. It was very bland and had an odd, sweet, flavor. It was also very flat and processed. There wasn’t too much to complain about since this calzone was only $5.95! The cheapest one yet! Despite the ridiculously awesome price (but also small size), I have to give this Calzone a D+ since it was just run-of-the-mill and was served with a pretty bad marinara sauce. Also, the restaurant needs to get rid of that smell. Woo Wee!