Finding the 'Zone: The Little Tomato

Size matters.

Don’t let anybody tell you different. This is especially true in food; one tiny cookie is just a sugary tease, those little hot dogs are only viable by the dozen and a crabapple is so puny that it’s simply a disappointment to the snack community in general. So when I walked into The Little Tomato on Howe Avenue, I was a bit worried they might live up to their name.

You know those exceptionally fat people that go by the moniker ‘Tiny’? This was apparently the thought behind the name “The Little Tomato,” because while the shop is small, the calzones are not.

What was placed before me, after $10 and about 10-15 minutes, was a monster of cheese and bread and grease. Somewhere in there were a few pepperonis as well. And that was one of my biggest complaints about the calzone; there was simply not enough meat, especially when you consider the size of the beastly calzone involved.

The only other problem with this ‘zone was that it was simply kind of blah. Their ricotta was decent enough, but like the pepperoni, it was lost in a sea of melted mozzarella, which isn’t really a bad thing, but it’s not a good thing either. The mozzarella is the foundation of calzones, but the ricotta is where it becomes good or even great.

The Little Tomato makes up for that in two areas: size and service. You won’t walk out of their hungry and you won’t walk out of there dissatisfied, because the people that work there are far and away the friendliest and most customer-oriented people I’ve seen in a long time.

So if you want a calzone that can feed a small African nation handed to you by the nicest people this side of the North Pole, the Little Tomato is the place to go.