Frankie Tomatto’s

Last night we went out with some colleagues of mine out to Frankie Tomatto’s

to celebrate our Christmas Dinner up in Markham.  When we got there the place was packed with people at the door however there were a lot of empty seats on the inside.  The staff appeared to have a little bit of trouble clearing out the backflow.  We were given a pager even though we had reservations however the wait time was only five minutes.

If one has never been in here before, Frankie Tomatto’s is mostly an Italian buffet style restaurant.  On this evening, they served a lot of pizzas, pastas, turkey, lasagnas, salads, seafood dishes and ribs.  The price for tonight’s dinner was $15.99 per person not including drinks.  One may want to go on their website at www.grankietomato.com to check out the rest of their pricing as it can be different for weekends and even on weekdays pending on what time one shows up for dinner. 

Again with buffet style places it is difficult to really photograph or even go through all the dishes one eats.   The place is rather large and can accommodate and/or seat quite a number of people.  As with my previous blogs, it is probably best that I give you a couple of the highlights and a couple of the lowlights. 

Bloody Caesar's

Let’s start off with what I thought was the bad.  The ribs here at the restaurant are huge which although optically is good, may not be the best ribs in town.  The barbeque sauce they use is not bad but when the ribs are big and are served big, it makes it very difficult for one to eat.  You literally have to eat with your hands and the meat so tough because of the age of the meat it makes it is difficult to cut and you literally have to “rip” the meat off the bone.  One suggestion is to possibly go with baby back ribs rather than full scale ribs. 

Another disappointment had to be the Caesar salad.  The romaine leaf is already mixed with the Caesar salad dressing however when one is trying to find croutons and bacon bits, they were no where to be found.  I asked the chef who was making the salad and he told me that “they were out”.  I found that to be quite odd but how can one be out of croutons as well as bacon bits.  To me it was more like they never had it to begin with.

On the flip side, the spaghetti and meatballs were quite nicely done.  The pasta sauce which was already mixed in with the meatballs was not too heavy or salty and blended well with the spaghetti.  It actually felt “light” and the noodles were somehow kept pretty soft which made it a pretty good dish to have. 

Another dish that went down well was the cranberry vegetarian rice which was located near at vegetarian table.  Again not fattening at all, it had a mixture of small vegetables, cranberries and white rice.  The rice was not like that of Chinese white rice but of the Uncle Ben variety.  Again, not a heavy dish which actually helped compliment some of the other food on the plate. 

Overall, it was a satisfactory experience. For the price one pays this place will feed you for the night.  The waiters are nice and they clear your dish quite rapidly.  The drinks however could have been better.  I ordered a double shot bloody Caesar thinking it was going to be strong, however it was basically 2 shots of alcohol with double amount of V8 and juice which made the drink super dilated and lacked and degree of spiciness to it.  Personally it felt as if some of the potential star dishes including some of the seafood and ribs failed while some of the more lackluster tight plates were better than expected.  A good place for office parties and again for the price one pays for buffet it is someone satisfactory.  Overall I give this a 3.25 out of 5.

Frankie Tomatto’s

7225 Woodbine Avenue  Markham, ON
(905) 940-1900