Tony C's Pizza and Beer Garden

My partner in crime and I have been frustrated that there are no good, trust worthy food reviews in the Austin area. We want to try new places, but when you can't trust the food reviews out there, or you can find no food reviews, it can get frustrating. 

We made a very long list of restaurants to try in the Austin and surrounding areas that we haven't been to yet. Right now our list is at 80 places. We'll be busy for a while. But that is just a list we came up with of places we've never tried. New and old haunts come into our cravings all the time as well, so it will take us a long time to get through all the food.

That being said, he and I are both foodies. We love food. But we love good quality food. Chilis, Applebee's, Olive Garden, those type of places are not what I'm talking about. I don't willingly choose to go to those kind of restaurants as I don't find them very good. And I'm always disappointed and sick to my stomach the rest of the night after eating there. So if you are a lover of these type of big chain restaurants, that's great. Enjoy what you love. 

You may not like my opinions or the restaurants I choose to go to. And that is absolutely fine. We all have our preferences. I prefer real food as opposed to frozen and re-heated food. 

Since we've found it difficult to find any real, reliable food reviews of places, we've decided to do our own. Food is always subjective to what a person likes, but maybe we aren't the only ones frustrated at the lack of trustworthy and honest personal opinions.

So here we go at the beginning of our search for the best foods in Austin and the surrounding areas.

Our first stop is Tony C's Pizza out by Dell Diamond in Round Rock.

Concerning pizza - something you have to understand. I love Italy, and have been lucky enough to travel a lot. I consider real pizza to be authentic Italian pizza. It is very different than America's version of pizza. When I say pizza, what I mean is the real Italian version, as it is the real version of pizza. I consider American pizza to be trash pizza. Don't get me wrong, I do love a good trash pizza full of cholesterol and all the cheese you can get out of a cow. I don't mean trash pizza in a derogatory way, just in a way that distinguishes the difference between the American version and the real stuff. I absolutely love me some Domino's on occasion.

Justin heard good things about Tony C's and wanted to try it out. A new place is always a gamble. Is it going to be good? Disappointing? Do the positive reviews match up with the quality of the food? You never know until you try.

I was fully aware that Tony C's was going to be the American, trash pizza style. Totally fine with that. A good trash pizza hits the spot on occasion. 

I like the way the restaurant is set up. It's a sports bar, which is great. Everyone loves a good sports bar where you can get a pizza, have a beer, and enjoy the sporting game of your choice. We're off to a good start. 

They had a good size menu with lots of options, which are mostly carbs, drowning in cheese. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. I LOVE carbs and cheese. They even had some salad options if you didn't want the typical greasy bar food.

We ended up getting some Mozzarella Sticks, an Italian meat sandwich, and a fully loaded pizza for carnivores.

The mozzarella sticks were really good. They were big, crispy, and very cheesy. I didn't care for there marinara dipping sauce, but I'm not a big marinara sauce dipping fan anyway. They were however really good in ranch dressing (everything is good with ranch dressing). Well done on the sticks.

Then we moved onto the sandwich. It wasn't quite what I was expecting from the menu, but it was essentially a French Dip sandwich. It came with a side, and we got the garlic fries. The sandwich was fine. It tasted fresh, the bread was big and fluffy, all in all a fine sandwich. It's something I wouldn't crave, or think about later, and it didn't leave me wanting more. But it was pretty average for a French Dip sandwich. 

The fries - not so good. They were cold, limp, and no flavor to them. Very disappointing and need some work. We didn't eat those. No one likes a cold soggy french fry.

Then came the pizza. First impression was that it was a lot of grease. The sauce on the pizza was pretty weak, not really giving the pizza much flavor. The pizza was to come with Italian sausage and meatballs. I didn't realize the meatballs would be sliced into thin layers. Same with the sausage - I was expecting ground sausage, not thinly sliced sausage. The sausage had some flavor to it, but the rest of the pizza was fairly bland. The crust was crunchy and the pizza came out nice and hot. But over all it was lacking flavor.

Needless to say we left the restaurant full, but not really satisfied. As the evening went on, we felt sicker and sicker. I cannot eat like that anymore. I sometimes need to be reminded I don't have the stomach of a 21 year old.

This is a spots bar. I'm well aware that it's not going to be 5 star dining. I also don't drink alcohol. I'm sure the more you drink, the better the food tastes. And we did fill up on bar food - heavy in carbs and dairy and grease. Of course we aren't going to feel amazing after this kind of food, but being physically nauseous for the rest of the night? That I have issue with.

If you want to have a fun night out with some friends, enjoy some beer and sports, and don't really care about the food, then this is a great fun spot to be. The food was edible, the place was clean, and it had a good vibe. But if you are a foodie, and want some good quality pizza, I wouldn't go back here. The pizza was a bit pricey, and had no real flavor to it. It was all very forgettable. Stick with some Dominoes delivered to your door. Or just come here for the mozzarella sticks. But Justin and I won't be coming back 

For all this food we paid about $50. No drinks, just tap water to go with the food. 

We rated this 3.25 stars out of 5.