vallone's / pizza express

tonight we headed over to vallone's or pizza express on thomas & hayden. while the restaurant changed hands some time ago and we weren't expecting the old standard of excellence, we felt like a local casual meal.

so it was a bunch of us, 6 adults, a 3 year old, a 2 1/2 year old and a 7 month old. when we first got there, there were a few other tables filled but they trickled out after a while and we were left with the entire restaurant for a while. very cool with "can be loud" children.

we started with the antipasto platter which was very good, cheese, salami, meat & black olives (syd was stealing all the black olives) over lettuce with an excellent dressing. as this was one of jen's old haunts when she lived nearby, she asked them for an extra side of dressing. this was a great call as their dressing was killer and excellent for dousing on their excellent garlic and regular hot italian bread (free refills).

for dinner we got a couple of pizzas. thin crust for the aussies with chicken, brocolli, garlic, green pepper, canadian bacon, black olives, mushrooms and fresh tomatoes. they loved their pizza. jen, mom & i got regular crust wtih mushrooms, onions & meatballs. jen was less than happy as the meatballs were pretty much quartered so there were huge chunks on it (i guess they used to slice them). i thought they were good anyway. marina (being dairy/egg allergic) got an order of chicken caccitore which she liked. i also ordered an eggplant rollotini that we shared and everybody enjoyed.

all in all, the food was good, it was super casual, it was a good value and it was close.