Another Google maps based on vicinity find. But boy am I
sure glad I found this place. It’s located in a shopping center right off of a
major road, but one would kind of describe it more like a strip-mall. It’s kind
of a sad affair to venture here, the area looks as if it might be closed and
bought out by a developer sometime in the near future and the businesses may be
struggling. This is confirmed by the signage presented (jokingly) by the
establishment that reads “Please stop in so that we can both eat”. Inside of
the place, it’s decorated in a vintage 80’s Italian art-deco style but in a
building that looks like it was built in the 60’s or 70’s. It was easy to order
and find the calzones, to which they have a plentiful selection along with
strombolis. I was very tempted, based off of interview reviews, to order the Steak
and Cheese stromboli but, with my last experience at Tony’s in Manassas, I
decided that I should always stick with the calzone first and foremost. I chose
the “Calzone”, or regular as I was informed by the cashier, for $8.99. I got my
diet coke and waited for about 15 minutes for it to arrive, a normal time. I
was the only patron who had ordered food at that particular moment and I could
smell my calzone baking. Oh it smelled delicious! When it came, I saw that
overall, in size, I would describe it as “medium” but it was so plump that I
have to raise this observation to “medium large”. Upon first cut I noticed that
the dough was thin and flaky on the outside, browned to a hardened shell. The
filling went all the way to the edges of the dough, which is always a wonderful
thing. The marinara sauce provided was especially good, flavored with strong Italian
seasoning. After tasting the dough, I would almost describe it as being “pretzeled”.
If there were salt on it, I would have sworn it was a pretzel. This added a
truly interesting dynamic to the meal. There was also a healthy amount of
ricotta in it, which is always welcome by my palate, and a goodly amount of
mozzarella. The mozzarella was not congealed all the way and, at the bottom of
the pocket, could still be seen in its shredded form. Surprisingly, this did
not diminish from the delicious flavor and only made it taste better! The
pocket was crammed full of ham. Some restaurants only sprinkle in slices of
chopped up ham, but this place was very liberal with it. The ham had a
wonderful smoky and sweet flavor. It was a very wet-ham which caused the bottom
of the calzone to be moist with meat juice. This took away from the dough a
little bit, because it was slightly soggy on the bottom, running across my
plate. The combination of this flavored ham, the ricotta, the uncongealed
mozzarella, and the awesome dough dipped in the heavily seasoned marinara sauce
made it clear that this was one unique calzone. I loved it! The size, the price, and the uniqueness of
this calzone make me give it the most solid B+ I have given to date. I will
definitely be stopping back in again in the future to try that steak and cheese
stromboli though.
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