nonna emilia ristorante

grew up in the area and had a brother that worked there. it is good food nut expensive. the entertainment was so sweet.

great pizza, calzone, pesto, sauteed mushrooms, and the basics, such as their meatballs and ravioli. prices are fair, including on the small but decent wine list. love the traditional decor and accordian, fun with friends and families on fri & sat nts.

i'm here for the pizza..... usually order pizza to go from nonna emilia's. always highly satisfied. large, thick pizza pieces, and there are always leftovers for the next day. yum

i remember it differently.... i remember dreaming about this place when i was a teenager. i lived on the se side and always wanted to drive to the west side for their pizza. however, i just went there the other night and i think 10+ years later my memory of the place doesn't match my current experience. the sauce was bizarre. it has a weird taste. the mozzarella sticks felt like they came from the freezer section. the pizza so, so. nothing to get ramped up about. overall, i think i would have been better off going to domino's or poppa murphy's. plus, my wallet would have liked me a lot more too!

i do not make it over this way often, but when i do, i always stop by nonna emilia for some of their veal parmigiana ($24.95 - breaded milk-fed veal cutlets baked with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese), but on this occasion i decided to try their veal manzo ($25.95 - milk-fed veal medallions in a rich gravy with fresh mushrooms and white wine) instead. good chow, great decision! the veal was tender and the sauce wonderful, coming with a plethora of fresh mushrooms ... hooah!

my wife had portabella mushroom ravioli (in a marsala cream sauce - $18.95) although the cream in the sauce was not very evident. the ravioli were cooked perfectly and the sauce was tasty although there could have been a little more of it because they were a little dry by the time they reached our table.

my son got the ravioli al formaggio ($18.95), a four cheese blend of ravioli in a parmesan cream sauce topped with a dab of marinara. he had hoped for a bit more marinara on top, but was very happy with the dish overall.

my son's lady friend ordered the veggie calzone ($17.95 fresh mushrooms, olives, green peppers, onions, blend of cheeses, and marinara sauce) minus the cheeses because she is vegan. however, when it arrived at the table, it had melted cheese sprinkled on top. the server caught the error right away, taking it back for the vegan version which took another 20 minutes. our server was kind enough to remove the calzone from the bill due to the faux pas.

as usual, the massive meals come with a small antipasto, soup or salad, and garlic bread, so we all ended up taking half of our meals home with us for lunch the next day. hey, two meals for the price of one brought the value of the $104 bill, including tip, down to just $52 ($12.50 per meal) ... ka-ching!

combat critic gives nonna emilia 8 bombs out of 10 ... more bombs are better!

i wanted to really give nonna emilia a higher rating.  the 3.5 rating, and the crowd when i got there, made me think this would be a great place for italian food; but, not quite as good as i hoped.  

don't get me wrong, the meal was good, but - believe it or not - pastini's is still my favorite place.  i used to work in an italian restaurant, as a kid in san diego, and i have always used the place as the standard for all others.  (yes, it was that good!)   pastini's actually meets that standard when it comes to the sauces and how well the cook up the pasta.

at nonna emiilia's they cook up a very meaty red sauce, but it is missing something - a sweetness of some sort.  still, the food was good, not great.  thus a 3.   the place was packed and the service suffered as a result and there were periods of delays for more bread or to refresh the drinks, but our server did her best, thus, a 3.  the ambiance was okay - quite loud though - but on the week-end night there was an entertainer who placed the accordion and the piano and would sing out on requests being made and, in many respects, he made the night fun. thus, a 4.

it adds up to a 3.3 but i won't round up, so a 3 overall.

i would like to give a warning to anyone who wants to use nona emilia's catering. my daughter wanted nona emila's food for her wedding bacause it was her favorite resturant and they ruined her wedding. we ordered food for 200 guests to be picked up at 2:30 p.m. when we showed up to pick up the food the doors were locked and no one would answer the phone. by the time we got a hold of someone and picked up the food it showed up at the reception two hours late. the people who gave us the food were rude and unapologetic.we had paid people to serve the food who had to work two extra hours and many of our guests had left before the food showed up. monday after the wedding i tried to contact the owners for four days before i received a call back. after explaining our situation the owner told me he would call me back to discuss some type of compensation. needless to say its been another 10 days and i still haven't heard any response. p.s. i'm still waiting for a call!

nonna emilia. great food!

never again. lastnight we order a larger pizza to go they said 30mins more like a hour and 30mins than when we got the pizza home it was way under cooked the dough was raw for a 40$ for a raw pizza go f your selfs worst pizza aloha / beaverton ever save your money it's not worth it

drunk owner takes from otherts. horrible!!!!! drunken owner takes all the service away from customers. our food was nothing like we have had in the past. the decision to make everyone wait longer, while the owner who was admittedly drunk, to get any service was absolutely inappropriate. they need a wake up call. don't drink in your small business, don't make a scene and be consistent with your food.

amazing! we love it here. the service, food and atmosphere are wonderful.
i don't know what restaurant the other reviews were from. certainly not nonnas!

disgusting. decaying wilted salad, runny sauce. disgusting. runny fettuccini sauce. very large portions but you can get better italian food at an all you can eat buffet. salad was not fresh at all, wilty salad looked like sitting out all day, decayed lettuce parts. had the main dish of fettuccine alfredo and sausage. fettuccine sauce was the most watery, tasteless sauce i've ever had. i would have preferred to eat my t.v. dinner fettuccini alfredo in the freezer. others at the table tasted and was surprised it was so runny. the sausage is cut up into very small little vittle bits and hard to get enough into your mouth to cover the blandness of the sauce. i was visiting family out of state and this restaurant was highly recommended. waitress seemed like she could care less about taste of meal, and am sure did not tell the cook or anybody for that matter after i complained. over $50 for the meal for two that was the most disgusting meal i've ever had. my partner had the veal and could not complete a quarter of it and had to scrape hardened cheese out of it and his pinto bean soup was lukewarm like microwaved. save your money, this food should cost a quarter of the price and i would still not go back at that price. absolute worst tasting restaurant i've gone to ever in any state hands down. atmosphere overall was sticky tables, unclean but had italian accordion player that was a nice touch.

awful. we tried this place the first time a few years ago. the food was at best mediocre, but it got high recommendations from folks we knew. so we decided to give it a try again and ordered a take-out pizza. i love pizza. for me to throw out more than half the leftovers of our expensive takeout pizza is pretty unknown, but i didn't want to ever have any more of this stuff. the crust was ok, but the rest of it was just terrible. not much sauce, not much cheese and a salt level so high i wanted to shape it into a block and use it for a livestock salt lick.

poor service. blah blah blah, i thought its a good thing for a restaurant to be busy not an excuse for giving poor service. asked for drinks to be served before dinner, waited 2 parties sat down next to us they got their drinks and ordered before we got drinks at the same time our dinner was served. at this point we did not want to drink with dinner. the waitress became rude, then the manager came out and ask what the problem was, he also was rude and said they are busy, and they are having a hard time keeping up. he was intimidating and rude towards us. i told him i was paying for they drinks we never had. he never apologized just told us they were busy.

never again. from the initial first contact for reservations we received bad service. once we arrived it continued along that theme. the waitress walked past our group for over a half-hour and never even made eye contact or stopped in to introduce herself. it took almost an hour to even get our first drinks. yes, it was a busy evening but weekends are busy at most restaurants. being busy is a good thing in the restaurant biz, not a reason to be rude. when we were finally able to get our orders in and eventually receive the food, it was definitely not worth the wait. this used to be the happening, great spot for good italian food but no more. we will not be returning for bland food and rude waitstaff.