Tony Romas

When dinner was booked for 7.30pm, I told them sure, I'll be there.
When 7pm showed up, I told them nah guys, sorta have an exam tomorrow.
When it came to 7.30pm, somehow I was out the door on the way to meet with Tony, who always promises and delivers a good ass meal.

I always end up making bad decisions. Or...I just don't make any at all. War breaks out whenever decisions are involved. My academic side was like dude, pass your exam aye. But my pig side was like dude, eat, and THEN pass your exam aye.
Yeah ok. That side of me always makes the better decision. I want this, I want it bad, and...I got my satisfaction.
:D

In fact, all 4 of us were immensely satisfied with this. Who wouldn't be! Like come on.

Onion Loaf - $15.50

This massive onion flower thing was crazy. It was so awesomely crafted, with a circular wall composed entirely of giant hand cut spanish onions, breaded and THEN, deep fried. That could either delight some but would probably disgust many, because so many people have an innate, indescribable hate for onions and LOATHE them with a passion. This type of person existed on our table, but because the other 3 of us aren't hateful people and don't share that same hate towards onions, we ordered it.
And not just the half loaf, but the whole pretty mouthwatering full loaf package so it could shine in all it's glory on the table right in front of M, who hates onions. Suck on that!

It comes served with their original BBQ sauce which fits nice and snug smack bang in the hole down the middle. The onions are sweet and I couldn't help but sneak in a couple of rings without taking the batter off. This came out pretty quick, but because we were waiting for the last person to arrive, we couldn't touch it. That was a difficult time to sit through. I couldn't help it. I picked some rings off the top and touched up the empty spots to hide the evidence that I did.
And evidently, I am a master at food thieving.


You see how in awe I was when this was plonked on our table? My jaw dropped cause it was so damn huge! And a full loaf is definitely plenty to go around, as by the end of our meal there was probably still half left which very regretfully went to waste. So yeah. DON'T BE GREEDY!
Or, you could quite possibly consume this as a main and feel like crap afterwards.

I didn't want to destroy this composition. It reminds me of a king's crown. Who could break that? This is the stuff crowns are made of. It looked so perfect.
So golden..
So majestic..
So crunchy..
So damn bloody perfect.

Kickin' Prawns - $16.50

We stumbled upon this starter once, when I went to Tony Romas being only half hungry (WHAT?!) and ordered an entree to be my main meal. And I'm glad we did. Because it's yum-mehhh as! You make good discoveries and come across good things when you least expect it sometimes. When you discover the right things, you stick with them, and you fall in love.

Personally I don't think $16.50 is worth it for the amount you get. It gets served in a little delicate cocktail glass that makes it look good and all but unfortunately good looking things lack substance. Sometimes. To all you good looking people out there, I don't mean any harm. :-)

You may not get much, but what you do get is the good schtuff. A few lightly battered prawns fried to crispy golden brown, then tossed in a spicy, creamy sauce "exploding with flavour", or so Tony says. And the man is right! I can't get enough of it. The taste of the sauce is so good it might even make you eat your vegies.

Bread and Herb Butter

I really like it when restaurants surprise you with their generosity. They're not obliged to give you any more than what you pay for, or sometimes they will even give you less than what you pay for, so it's nice to see when they make the move to offer you something that you didn't ask for. Because simple gestures like that are what makes somebody's day sometimes, and they go a long way.

This cone shaped basket of fresh warm bread was delivered to the table, free of charge. It's easy to fill up on this before your mains come because you're already hungry and when it's in front of you like that, it's in our human nature to reach and grab for one, lather on the soft and creamy herb butter, savour every mouthful, make delicious sounds, and repeat the process multiple times before your actual food comes out.

So fluffy in the centre, such crusty edges on the sides makes for good bread. I got so into my bread that when the waiters came around to take away the basket after our meal, I jumped and exclaimed wait STOP!, there's still one inside :-) She went all apologetic for assuming I was done with the bread, and then proceeded to laugh at me. What, it was good bread.

Filet Medallions with Grilled Prawns - $38.90

I didn't try this. I would like to try this. The menu describes the dish as being two perfectly prepared filet medallions topped with cabarnet demi glace paired with grilled prawns. I forgot to ask for a taste of perfection, so I'm not sure how perfect the medallions were. I did have a prawn though, from that skewer that held 5 delicate little prawns sporting black, charcoaled (or as D insists, caramelised) tails. They were meh as one can imagine. Served also with coleslaw and the rounded ice cream lookalike scoop of mashed pohtahtoh.

I actually don't like how the meals are plated here, they look a little too spacious and looks a bit empty as a consequence. Food is sparsely spread apart and the two medallions are medallion sized alright. But Perth can get away with these relatively higher prices, presumably because people still go out and eat a heck of a lot, many with an appetite for delicious and saucy barbequed ribs.
 

St Louis Ribs & BBQ Chicken - $37.50

I shared this with M, thinking it would fill up 2 hungry tummies. Not so! Last time they ran out of BBQ chicken so we were determined to try it this time, being the chicken fanatics that we usually are. After having tried it, I think I'll give it a miss next time. Not that it was bad, but you can find tastier chicken elsewhere, in a place that doesn't specialise in ribs. We got the maryland part of the chicken, and even the usually tender dark meat section could save it from tasting a bit dry and overcooked.

The St Louis Ribs however, herrrrooo! Slightly sweet and always sticky, these sauce slathered ribs are always juicy, tender and tasty. I was lucky enough to be able to eat the meat, already deboned (deboned?...off the bone) for me so that I didn't end up with a sauce moustache like my 6 month old niece always sports. At her meal times she always looks like she got attacked by orange mash, although she rocks the pumpkin puree makeup look quite well :D

The dish came with a choice of 2 sides, to which we said yes to baked potato and coleslaw. Even though mash potato tickles our fancy more, M is picky and always dislikes the mash served at restaurants when they are "fake", ie. when powder is used and tastes gritty and floury as a result. You can't exactly find a fake baked potato, so instead would rather call for that and then go to all the fuss to make our own mash. I applaud you for that effort, I seriously cbf.
I say that quite a lot and it has become quite the line for me if you ask me to do anything. Regrettably it has grown on me to become my trademark.
I hope to be the proud owner of a CBF! number plate one of these days.

DIY mash

Oh, yeah that's the mash potato M attempted. This lump of moosh that resembles regurgitated food was like THE best tasting side of the night :-) Sorry it doesn't look as attractive as it sounds. The baked potato was scraped cleanly out of its jacket and mixed with the herb butter that came with the bread, which resulted in something called Success!

Potatoes are full of carbs and all and are probably the least useful vegetable out there in terms of benefits to health based on how much it is processed to become chips. Which are probably the only reason why people like potatoes. But they are so versatile and still taste good, if you fry, boil, roast, poke, prod, mash, whatever to it. And if you add a tonne of butter to it, it's pretty hard to make it taste bad. Unless you fail at life. I fail at life.

Half Slab Baby Back Ribs - $40.50

Horrendous photo. I have nothing to say.

Nexxxxxt!

Prawns Scampi Pasta - $22.90

With all the carnivorous activity going on around me, I went for something that sounded lighter and more...animal friendly. I decided on the Prawns Scampi pasta, which boasted a "generic portion of prawns" lightly sauteed with garlic, fresh basil, tomato pesto and a hint of chipotle, served over linguine and topped with shaved Asiago cheese. What the heck is a generic portion? I counted. Apparently this entails 10 prawns as a generic serving.

It was nice, but I can't think of any other word to fit as a better and more exciting description. You can probably judge by looking at it that it tasted pretty normal. I wouldn't be rushing to order it ASAP, and from this, I could probably sense that I wanted to join in on the beastly meat eating and be a carnivore instead. Protein is always more fun than, um, whatever the hell vegetables give you. A boring meal?

...

Tony Roma's enjoys pretty much full house seating capacity for dinner like every night. It's loud and it's rowdy as a result, but no one seems to care. You get down here and you are more than likely to get your hands dirty but it doesn't matter, cause you will most likely lick them clean again because the sauce is just too good to feed to wet wipes!

Because business is so damn good, they actually have a system whereby you actually can't make reservations for a table before you come, unless this has been removed. You get to the entrance, put your name down...and you wait. And wait and wait and wait and hope that your name is called before you starve to death on the pavement outside, or on their couch inside. There is a big screen projector playing to keep you amused for a while and to keep your mind off the delicious sights and smells wafting in the air.

Food options are plentiful but personally I would recommend coming here for the ribs and eat eat eat enough to risk death-by-meat. Vegetarians will shake their head at this place and all the sights of meat could also cause them death-by-meat. I don't remember too many Vego options but you can't blame that, should you choose to visit a place who specialises in meat and would probably have to sabotage a crap load of animals to keep up to their renowned famous ribs. 

Parking is also a frickin pain in the butt, as spots fill up quickly along the street and you're forced to park like, in a spot that isn't right in front of the restaurant LOL. I guess you are forced to walk a bit after the feast, which isn't a bad thing, but it is a bad thing, when you can't exactly walk after your feast. I'd say walk to the restaurant for dinner but definitely get picked up after it. Cause then you wouldn't have to walk up the street, turn a corner, walk down that street, get blown over by the permanently gusty wind on that street, cross the road, walk down another street, turn other corner, walk down that street to finally get to your car. A absolute waste of all those calories just consumed.

Staff are kept busy on their feet and running around like mad people, in order to keep up with such a busy environment. Despite this they can keep a smiley demeanour and are actually quite attentive with patrons. It was actually US who couldn't keep up with them!, as our waitress came round to our table a few times to take our order. But you know, with such a delicious menu, we could only finally decide on the THIRD time she came round. But no worries, this didn't bother her, or maybe it did and she could have been cursing us inside, but remained professional and is very very good at her job.
Cause hospitality is all about pleasing people, even if they are uncooperative, demanding a-holes.

We were not uncooperative, demanding a-holes.
Just indecisive a-holes.
:-)