Tony’s Deli

Tony’s Deli
1046 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC

A friend of mine, who is married and has a grown-up daughter, complains once in a while that, because of the family, he no longer can just wake-up and go where ever he wants. While I could do that, of course, I don’t gloat about it; instead, he just tells me I should do that while I can. In an odd way, in one of the many instances he told me that, the following morning, I woke up and said to myself: “After hitting the gym, I should go The Drive…” And being in that area by noon means having lunch there. However, there is a big problem: With so many restaurants, cafes, pizza parlours in the area, which one should one go? So many options… So little time! After walking I realized: so far, I have not blogged here about an Italian place! That sort of made the decision making easy process, doesn’t it?

Commercial Drive is still a hub in Vancouver for the Italian community so one would think finding an Italian restaurant would be easy, right? Actually, there are a lot of coffee shops yet there aren’t that many Italian restaurants. So, again, that simplify the decision-taking process and that’s how I ended up in Tony’s Deli.

It is a really small place. A couple of tables located outside the deli itself and a couple of tables inside with some stools. It was a bit cold outside so everybody was inside and, as a result, packed full, despite it was way past lunch time. That seemed to be a good indication…

Call it stereo-typical, when you are in an Italian restaurant, what comes to your mind? Well, there is pizza and then there is pasta. Since they don’t serve pizza, pasta was. Now, they had other items, mostly deli related, like sandwiches, and some cookies. However, I was planning to get some sweets later so, again, pasta it was. That day, they had an appreciation special and for less than $8, I had:

A small salad. Nothing extraordinary, but it served the purpose of providing some greens to the serving of…

Fettucini with meatballs. Now, before somebody says those meatballs look small, well, they were. Although I could have ordered extra meatballs, there was no need: I will just say flavour made up for the size. As for the pasta, I felt it was slightly past of the al dente point; however, that did not distracted me from the main part – the sauce. It was not too “sweet” nor too “acidic”. But the important part was that it stuck really well to the pasta so there was no need to drown them in sauce. Now, caveat emptor, I was quite hungry at that point so, if the meatballs were store bought or the sauce was from a jar, I couldn’t tell or care!

Oh, yeah, there was a piece of garlic bread but I ate it only as an afterthought. No, it wasn’t bad; in fact it was quite garlic-y. It was just over-shadowed by the pasta.

Overall, it was a good lunch. Would I come back? I would certainly like to but, given all the options in the area, I think it will be a while before I do so. So many options, so little time!

Tagged under: Italian • Pasta • Vancouver