Tommaso's Ristorante Italiano — Restaurant in San Francisco

I am from Albania which is right across Italy. The only thing separating us is the Adriatic Sea. That's pretty much it. I've grown up listening to Italian music and eating a lot of pasta! So, you can imagine I make a lot of pasta at home including dishes like Carbonara, Bolognese, Risotto with mushrooms so I know what good pasta is because I have been eating it since I can remember :) Let alone we just went to Firenze and Roma 2 years ago...Ahhhh the pasta in Rome, really the best!!!

Now, we find ourselves hungry on a Sunday night. The day had been perfect so far, we hit 3 Beer Bars, walked insane amounts of miles (25,000 to be exact) all day from one corner to another in SF and after the last view spot at Coit Tower we were walking down through the italian neighborhood. We had been meaning to try out Tommaso so we said why not! Trying out new places was the theme of the night anyways.

We go in and it seems cute, cozy and relatively small. No one really greets us but that's ok, we patiently wait to make eye contact with someone to understand if we are going to be seated or we just need to grab a seat ourselves. Place looks pretty full but I see one table clearing up. A waiter (old asian guy) comes up to us whispering something we believed to have been "someone will seat you shortly". We continue to wait patiently. A couple of people from the staff makes eye contact and then looks around to see if someone has greeted us so he also says someone will seat you shortly. Another woman comes (3rd person at this point) and shows us the way to our table (the one that was clearing up). No one asked us if we had a reservation so I am assuming they don't do reservations here.

As we get seated I am looking around at the place which is filled with paintings. It looks cozy although the orchid flower placed on the table says nothing about Italy. There's already olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and another container which looks familiar to the ones that contain parmesan. I don't want to believe it so I ignore the latter. Olive oil smells great and has the typical green color which tells me it's going to be amazing. My hopes are going up that this will be a great experience despite the orchid flower and the parmesan container. But it kept going down south as we read the menu. We weren't impressed with the pasta selections really. Lots of pizza options but we weren't in the mood for pizza so we stick to ordering pasta.

We started with baby Amarone wine which was Ok, not super great choice but nice and light with a smooth finish. They served us complimentary bread basket with lots of warm bread which we enjoyed dipping in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Between the three of us we ordered:

spaghetti meatballs linguine di mare (seafood) penne alla vodka

Meatball pasta is a staple Italian dish and nothing is more sad than overcooked (almost burned) meatballs. Simply sad.

Linguine seafood was ok, didn't seem so fresh and the red sauce didn't taste like fresh tomato sauce so what was I eating?

Penne alla vodka was the best dish although not really Italian at heart.

We all weren't impressed with our dishes but I was still waiting for our waiter to bring us the fresh parmesan but no one came. It made me think what I saw earlier on the table (remember the parmesan looking container?) it was probably it?!?! We finally smelled it and tasted the parmesan from the container and what did it really taste like? Milk powder! This cannot be it. I refuse to believe an Italian restaurant would serve such bad quality parmesan so as the waiter comes back to our table I ask in Italian if we can have some fresh parmesan and the waiter responds in Italian pointing at the container saying only that one over there. Shocked and appalled we finished our sad meals without fresh parmesan, paid the bill and went home.

It was an experience trying this new restaurant. Just not one I will repeat or...

One star to balance reviews here and on yelp that influenced where to eat and resulting dashed expectations. This place is in a depressing area (x-rated video/entertainment everywhere) & hard to park nearby. We got there about 15 minutes after opening (had to find a parking space), and already all the booths were taken. We sat at the long table in the center of the small room, at the far end from the entrance. It felt cramped, and was busy/noisy with waitstaff walking back and forth constantly, inches from the back of my chair. With 3 of us at the table, it did not have enough room for the two small pizza's we ordered. I had to place my pizza on the adjacent table. I ordered a small pepperoni for myself, intending to take the leftovers home. The other 2 people split a small pizza with basil, mozzarella. Along with one caesar salad and two glasses of wine, the bill came to $66. Way too much for the ambiance and food quality. I could not taste the almost non-existent sauce on my pizza, yet it was still limp and a knife and fork were essential to cut the soggy crust. It had too much cheese and the small pepperonis were not spicy and lacked character. Some people who came in after us and were sitting in the center of the long row of tables, were moved to make room for more people after they were already served. I thought it very tacky, and reflected poor planning. Our waitress seemed overworked, while others were standing around a lot. We were just sitting there waiting to get out for about 10 minutes before we had to corral one of the other employees standing around a few feet from our table to bring us a bill. I ate two slices of my pizza (one too many), and decided not to bring home the rest. It really was that...

We walked in, were seated and given water in a timely manner but thats the extent of the service. No menus. About 15 minutes into sitting we watched the female server seat the people who walked in after us, she got them water, sat down next to one of the people. Talked to them, got them wine, bread and took their order. My husband got up and went to find us menus. There was a man cleaning tables who saw him go get us menus whom even looked at me as well. I thought that would have triggered someone to come over but nope. After deciding what we were going to have for dinner, we sat for about 5 more minutes….no one ever came to the table. I could understand if it was busy but it looked like an average Sunday evening and clearly not too busy if the server could sit and spend so much time with the couple that it appeared she clearly knew. After a total of 20 minutes (and I know that’s accurate because I took a photo of outside before walking in to send to the friend that recommended we try this place). When we stood up and left the man that was previously cleaning the tables said “um oh, we just had multiple people come at the same time.” To which I told him was not the case and reiterated that we saw the female server with the other table. Dont go here if youd like to eat. So much for trying this restaurant for our anniversary trip to San...