Tomatina

Ive worked in fine dining and our waiter Daniel has all of the skills of a five star server.
He recommended the lasagna and penne bolognese and the food was amazing.
Even the mint tea was delish.
We are moving to Alameda and this will be one of our go tos.

No service. No water. Nobody talked to us.

Once again I am disappointed by Tomatina’s. For years you have been cheating customers and today was no exception. I think great! We get this extra discount, why not go to Tomatina’s? Plus we were just sent a coupon for a free entrée salad! We order dinner and lucky us Tuesday is half off a bottle of wine.
We tell the waitress of our gift card when we arrive, before we order. We eat dinner and ask for the check. It arrives showing the half off bottle of wine, for a total of $ 93.07. We hand the coupons ($ 15 gift card and free entrée salad $ 11.50 coupon) to the waitress. We wait twenty to thirty minutes to get the check back. I expect the bill to be $ 26.50 cheaper (85.00−26.50=58.50 plus tax), but no it is more. I look and we lost the discount on the wine. I hand it back to the waitress. We ask to talk to the manager. She tells us sorry corporate has a crappy micron system and they are trying to fix our bill. After another 20 minutes we get it back for about the correct amount (about a $ 1 more). The manager tells us there is nothing more to do but complain to corporate as corporate is not listening to the stores about the issues with the point of sale machines.
Why do you continue to have this flawed system? Why do you continue to bank on ignorant customers? What is worst is I had my elderly mother with us. I think is Tomatina’s trying to cheat senior citizens? How embarrassing this experience was. I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO TOMATINA’S!
I am posting this to Unilocal in hopes that this complaint will be heard since previous complaints have been ignored!
Oh I forgot to mention how they made us wait (with my 92 year old mother) while there were tables for 20+ people open. Fifteen minutes! And they told us we could not sit at the bar (as I had teenagers with me – not that they were goin gto sit at the bar). Really they expect a 92 year old to stand? The teenagers ended up waiting outside anyway so they wouldn’t have been at the bar.

Another good meal and Birthday party, we ordered a salad and Pescatora pasta, enough to feed 2 of us. Our group of eight had an enjoyable meal. The service was good and conversation. We were not rushed to eat our meal and leave. We’ll be back sgain on our next trip from Hawaii.

The food here is consistent and tasty but not generally worth the wait (though at prime dinner rush everything has a line on Park St.). Chicken pasta was good, I liked the creamy tomato basil soup more than the bland minestrone. Fresh lemonade was good, service was fine. Seemed well priced. I heard Mama’s Spaghetti and Meatballs was great, I wasn’t able to taste it.

Parking on Park Blvd. is overall really tough to do. I recommend parking in the parking garage by CVS and the movie theater just one block down from Tomatina.
I originally had plans with my friends at another restaurant but the wait time was estimated to be an hour long so we decided to eat at Tomatina. I went in and stood there for about 5 minutes trying to figure out who was the host/​hostess so we could put our name down. While doing so a couple told us that they have been waiting for an hour and I knew immediately that there was something wrong. Our wait time was about 30 minutes which wasn’t too bad for our party of 4 because we were all catching up. After being seated, we put our drinks order (sparkling lemonade, peach Italian soda, and two Moscow mules) but because they ran out of limes we didn’t get our Moscow mules. I just thought it was so unusual that they ran out of limes during dinner time. After putting in new drink orders, we noticed the sudden lack of waiters and waitresses in the room and had to wait 30 minutes to put in our food order. Luckily my friends and I were caught up in our conversations but we did pause to realize how odd it was to not have anyone come to take our order. I low key wanted to just pay for our drinks and leave but our waitress came just in time. We ordered a large pesto chicken pizza, spaghetti & meatballs, penne bolognese, and bruschetta. While waiting for our food to come out we weren’t offered any of their famous focaccia bread but instead some really dry breadsticks that looked more like décor than anything else. Overall, the food tasted pretty average, at that rate I was too hungry to care. I think if it weren’t for my friends whom I haven’t seen in a long time I would have had a much more negative experience. Overall, average food with a below average service.

Tomatina has been an Alameda Staple as long as I remembered. Overall It is a solid Italian restaurant that boasts unique and special week day bonuses (such as kid’s eat free with an adult entrée) and a good attached bar (You can probably find a better assortment of liquor at american oak, but you are at an Italian Pizza restaurant not a fancy bar).
Pros: Good Service, Good atmosphere, Portions are good. (Large is good for 3 very hungry people, Medium for 2, Small is good for one)
Cons: Ordering out, don’t expect them to call you (they forgot to call me back and kept me waiting. However the Garden Pizza was worth it. (they did keep it warm until I came and picked it up)

We have eaten at the Tomatina in Walnut Creek and had good meals. This place was horrific. Servers were overworked and inattentive. The Salmon Piadini tasted like I licked the bottom of a dock. The fishy taste was awful. The minestrone soup tastes like pure olive oil. Not sure why??? Never again.

Service — Jill was good.
Food — Average. Nothing to go out of your way for!
It was my Niece’s 20^th Birthday on Monday ¹¹⁄₃₀. The restaurant was very quiet, which was a good thing.
The one thing that I was rattled by was the fact that they charge $ 2.00 per person to bring in your own Birthday Cake. When I was advised of this it just really ruined the celebration… the dessert menu is not that impressive. The staff do not sing or celebrate birthdays… I don’t think that I will be back, especially NOT for a SPECIAL Occasion… Too many other options…

I had the Fusilli Gorgonzola for lunch. It just did not taste very good at all
in my opinion. It just was not worth the almost $ 15 price. I have eaten here
about 10 times over a few years. I am not going to go back again.

I think this place is overrated and over priced. For what I got, I sure paid a lot. I do not eat meat so paying a lot for a lunch meal is not worth it to me. The pizza was just «ok» and the portion for the lunch special was small.

After having great food at this location, we went to another location of theirs in Union City. And the food was absolutely bland, so we came back to the Alameda location to try them out again!
This time we were sat very fast and given water very quickly as well. So we took about about 3 minutes looking at the menu and made our choice on what to order. Several minutes passed the waiter seemed to forgot about us. He sat and was quickly serving people that came in after after us. Personally, I know it’s hard to keep up when the place is packed. Finally the waiter and I, made eye contact and he simply went on his way to serve people that arrived after us. So we waited another 3 minutes to see if he would come take our order but he didn’t
So We Left!!! I felt like they ignored us on purpose, even after the waiter knew we were ready to order!!!
I recommend people to go elsewhere, somewhere where you well be treated equally !!!

Web order– fail.
Employee competence– fail.
Staple found in my food-​SHUT THIS PLACE DOWN.
Seriously?!? «I’m sorry» just doesn’t smooth over this experience. Neither does a free pasta «later».
They need to seriously figure it out or close down. So unprofessional and hazardous. ZERO STARS!

This place is a typical chain Italian restaurant… definitely nothing to rave about. The only dish I thought was worth the money were the garlic rolls.
The worst part about Tomatina is not the mediocre food, or my chicken piccata that consisted of dry overcooked chicken breast that tasted nothing like capers or butter sauce, more like boiled chicken with some pepper, and also a handful of tasteless noodles. The worst part was that when I returned my meal, because it was not even worth eating, the manager said she would only charge me half for a dish I took two bites out of. Her response was «it looked like you ate about half of the dish», to which I responded… no that’s just how pathetic and small the dish was. The only reason I ate more than once bite was because I was trying to give it a chance before being quick to say it was bad, I also gave my wife a bite to confirm its horribleness.
I have never been to a restaurant that said they would charge me half for a meal they recognized was not up to par, just because I took two bites out of it. I am a 6 foot 200lb man… two bites is no where close to a meal. I eventually had them take the dish off my bill, after having to make somewhat of a scene by asking to speak with the manager (which I wanted to avoid).
There are much better options for Italian food on the Island, and even though they are a tiny bit more expensive it is 100% worth it. I will never go back here just for a quick cheap italian meal– which is really all it is good for in the first place.

I didn’t think the food was that great. For $ 15 I expected more than 5 shrimp on my pasta.

Food is OK here. The free bread was the most appetizing than my meal. We asked our server for a kids menu twice and she still didn’t get it for us, had to get up and get it ourselves. I didn’t taste or experience anything unique than all other Italian restaurants. Would I come here again, maybe if I had to. However, I wouldn’t come here again by choice.

We went to this restaurant on a recommendation. We do not live in the area and wanted to try it. Because it was late in the evening and we had young kids we decided to phone order and bring it back to our hotel. The restaurant was clean and the staff was helpful.
We ordered the garlic rolls based on Unilocal recommendations. Needless to say these were disgusting on take out. The rolls were saturated in oil with some garlic and herbs. The oil was too much and the rolls were not edible as every bite you took was soggy, flavorless oil soaked bread.
I ordered the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo. It had some flavor but by the time it was taken back to the hotel the noodles were clumped together and the chicken was dry.
My wife ordered the insalata mixta which she said was flavorful but small for the cost ($ 7). She also had the Fusilli Gorgonzola which she described as nothing special.
This review is based on take out only and not service at the restaurant itself.

Tomatina has become my family’s go-​to dinner spot in Alameda. All the things I’ve had there have been very tasty.
On my most recent visit, I started off with the Vanilla Mint Lemonade. It was to die for. I’ve never had anything that tasted quite like it. It’s like a sparkling lemonade with muddled mint and a hint of vanilla. Absolutely heavenly.
For my dinner, I had the Caprese Piadine. A piadine is like a baked flatbread with a salad on top, folded in half. It was so light and refreshing, yet filling. I highly recommend this unique entrée.

Gotta update from my last review… they deserve it
We gave this another try… twice…and both times were very good…
We ordered the pasta dishes and that large flat pizza
Very delish…

On Saturday, 8÷16÷14, my girlfriend and I ate at Tomatina for lunch. I’ve been wanting to eat here for a while so we made the trip to Alameda.
Atmosphere/​Décor:
The restaurant is medium sized. There’s plenty of seating. I saw an outdoor dining area which looked pretty nice. The restaurant kind of reminds me of Amici’s. When we walked into the restaurant there was a weird smell present. The smell was covered up once food was being prepared. When I walked to the restrooms I noticed a lot of food scraps on the kitchen floor where the chefs cook. There is no way that food was from today. We literally got there a few minutes after the restaurant opened. It had to be there from the previous day.
Food:
I ordered the Mama’s Spaghetti and Meatballs (our own all — beef meatballs braised with fresh herbs, tomato sauce and parmesan.) I thought it was pretty good. The pasta was cooked perfectly and the sauce had a nice simple flavor to it. The flavor of the meatballs was really good but the texture was mushy. If the meatballs were a little bit more firm this dish would be excellent. I also ordered the medium sized Carne Combro Pizza (mozzarella, parmesan, tomato sauce, sweet Italian sausage, pepperoni, prosciutto and sautéed mushrooms.) I liked the pizza a lot! The pepperoni, sausage, and Prosciutto tasted really fresh and flavorful. It was good regular tasting pizza.
My girlfriend ordered the Gnocchi with Sausage Special. My girlfriend said her dish overall was good but she also said she’s had better gnocchi.
Service:
Our waiter Alexander was good but the only complaint that we had about him was that he didn’t bring us any bread nor did he offer it to us. We even saw a waitress give a couple different tables bread.
Overall:
Overall Tomatina is a pretty good Italian restaurant but if your in Alameda and want great Italian food go to Trabocco instead.