Villa Rosa — Restaurant in Ewing Township

Villa Rosa in Ewing likes to play dishonest games with those that pay with credit cards. First off, there is a 4% surcharge for credit card use...whatever. What I find dishonest is as one goes through the point-of-sale prompts, up comes the "tip" prompt, where a 10% tip is VERY LIGHTLY highlighted as the DEFAULT parameter (honest businesses have a "zero" tip percentage as the default parameter). The highlighting is SO FAINT that it's easy to miss as one rips through the prompts to complete the transaction. I first noticed this on March 9th, where I noticed the subtle shading on the tip page, and revised the tip amount away from the default 10% tip to a "zero" tip amount. In checking my credit card transactions, I saw that I was indeed charged a 10% tip amount on a Villa Rosa transaction dated March 1st using the same point-of-sale terminal, all without me ever realizing such at the time. What a rip-off! Anyway, I've been going to Villa Rosa off and on since around 1989. The pizza was superior when the prior (Italian) owners had it, wherein the pizza is baked a lot darker now, wherein the dough isn't nearly as tasty as under the prior ownership...I used to rave about VR to friends, but no more. ANYWAY, who knows how many other people were dishonestly surcharged an extra 10% at Villa Rosa without knowing it. While I suspect that management will claim such is a mistake with the terminal system, we all know otherwise. What I also know is that I will never set foot in Villa Rosa...

Memorable, exceptional, and unexpected evening. We arrived in Ewing late on a Sunday night, and were recommended here by another restaurant whose kitchen was just closing. What we thought would be a local pizza joint turned out to be a five star dining experience. After a few questions about what we would like to eat, we left the meal up to Sal. He started with roasted octopus on arugula salad, tender and perfectly seasoned. For dinner, a generous plate of Italian wide noodles with fish, shrimp, mussels and clams with a light red sauce (We would order the fra diablo next time, for a little more zip). Our second dinner was seared lamb chops, flambé at the table, topped with sautéed mushrooms, drizzled with truffle oil. Perfectly cooked and delicious. The restaurant is BYOB, which we did not know, so Sal treated us to a bottle of his own wine, on the house, which we enjoyed with our meal. Warm friendly and attentive personal service made this visit an extraordinary experience....

GLAD I TRIED! I went here cause another place in the same strip was unexpectedly closed. The place was clean, quiet - - and nice air conditioning. I went to the sit-down restaurant and the guy just said "sit anywhere you like" - which I love. Dear Reader I didn't have an exotic meal - but I had simple food which is may favorite and it was just right.

*Bread Rolls: Served warm, with plenty of butter. Not room temp with me begging for butter.

*House Salad: Cold and Crisp. Nice chunky bleu-cheese dressing. *Calamari: Very happy with it - not overdone, a nice flaky fry.

*Cheese Pizza: Nice and hot, really loved everything about it from flavor to sauce to cheese amount to crust.

Service was fine - I saw the waiter handle special requests happily.

Reasonable on price too in my opinion. Anyhow, while these are simple dishes - they were ALL good - -and maybe that is a hint for other things on the menu, maybe not. But I'll be...