Royal Oak pizza has been around for a long time and I remember my mom ordering take out pizza and lasagnas from there when I was a kid. From what I remember the pizza wasn’t the greatest and I preferred Pizza Hut. This was a long time ago, so I’m willing to give their pizza another shot. This time I went for my mom’s and brother’s birthday dinner. The place was pretty busy on the Friday we went. It was very loud in there and it was hard to hear someone just directly across the table.

To start we just ordered some Greek style ribs as well as a side of fries for my nephew. The baby back ribs came out really quickly. They weren’t BBQ’d, but boiled or braised in liquid. They were a kind of unappealing grey color, probably just boiled. Flavored with Greek herbs and lemon. Its something that you can easily make at home. Parts of it was fall off the bone tender but some wasn’t.

For our mains, me and my brother ordered the roast lamb, my dad ordered the kalamari dinner, my mom ordered a Greek mixed grill platter that was on special, and Tre ordered the lamb souvlaki. The roast lamb was pretty pricey at 18.95 but it was delicious. The meat was very tender and had a good amount of fat that melts in your mouth. Excellent flavours in the crust, and so moist and juicy inside. Tasted great. It came with Greek salad, which didn’t have much dressing, rice, potato, tzatziki sauce, and some pita bread.

The kalamari wasn’t that good because the squid was cut way too big. I prefer smaller pieces of kalamari so it’s easier to eat. It was lightly breaded, but not very crispy. The mixed platter came with the same ribs we ordered as an appy, a lamb chop, and some souvlaki. Good mix of meats if you wanted to try a variety of things.

The service was OK. Some of the servers were friendlier than others. There isn’t that much parking in the front, but you can also park in the back. I’d come back more often, but wish the roast lamb would be a few dollars cheaper.

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Royal Oak
15336 Fraser Highway
Surrey, BC

(604) 581-3330

www.royaloakpizza.com

My friend told me about Aaron’s pizza probably almost a year ago, but I’ve rarely been in the area. It’s just off the main street of downtown Cloverdale. I had tried to go here a few weeks before but they were closed off for a private function. My hope for this place would be kind of like a closer replacement for Anton’s where I can get decent tasting pasta, and tons of it when I have a craving. On Tuesdays to Thursdays they have 9 dollar pastas. Aside from pasta they also serve greek food and of course pizzas.

I started with the French onion soup which was pretty tasty. It was a very rich dark broth filled with tender strips of onions and topped with a slice of bread loaded with tons of cheese. A bit too salty but really tasty. It was good for being under $4. My friends ordered the seafood chowder and they loved it. A creamy chowder with mixed seafood, potatoes and carrots. They seriously enjoyed it a lot, and would go back there just for the seafood chowder. Really comforting and also really cheap.

For my main I had to order a pasta – the penne with chicken and rosemary tomato cream sauce. The chicken was tender and the sauce had whole cloves of roasted garlic and a very strong basil flavour. The pasta was a bit undercooked in my opinion. Overall it was just pretty average, but that’s maybe because I prefer rich cream sauces. It was a decent size but not huge. I was able to finish my plate fairly easily. My friend said that a lot of his friends can’t finish. I’m not sure about that.

My friends ordered the roast lamb and a bacon wrapped sirloin. I tried a bit of the roast lamb and it was flavorful and fatty it was serves with the usual rice, potatoes, tzatziki, and Greek salad for $15. The bacon wrapped sirloin came with two small pieces of steak and a huge side of spaghetti. It honestly looked like spaghetti with a side of steak. He said it was good though, but yah, way too much spaghetti. We were also given a basket with pita and garlic bread.

I’d come back. Although my pasta was just decent, it was also only $9 that day, and there are a few other pastas I want to try on the menu. I still also need to try the pizza, it is in the name after all.

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Aaron’s Pizza
17665 57 Ave
Surrey, BC

(604) 576-8151

www.aaronsrestaurant.ca

I think I tried to go to Porto Fino Mediterranean restaurant a few months ago, but got wrote down the wrong address. I found it this time. Porto Fino actually has a couple other Express locations – probably take out only and a limited menu.

The area is pretty sketchy looking, around the Scott Rd and 96th Ave area in Surrey. The building looks very old from the outside. Once we got in though, it got better. We were quickly seated. Luckily they had a few TVs in there so that I could watch the Vancouver Canucks game.

The menu is filled with your standard Greek food, with some Italian food like pastas and pizzas. We ordered the Eggplant Parmesan for our appetizer. For our entrees, I ordered the Regular sized Lasagna Al Forno with meat sauce (you can choose plain tomato sauce) ($13.99), and Beipas ordered the light Lamb Souvlaki ($15.99). I also ordered a 1/4 L of red wine which was really good. I can’t remember what it was called though. It was pretty light and fruity.

The food took a long time to come, but our waitress apologized. Seemed like their was only one chef/cook in the back, but it also wasn’t too busy. I think there were about 5-6 tables filled. I think it took about 30 minutes for our appetizer to come out. The eggplant was covered with tomato sauce and mozarella and edam cheese. I guess it was really the sauce and cheese that made me really liked it. I could taste the eggplant but it was pretty soggy. I couldn’t tell if it was breaded and fried before being baked. Anyways we both liked it. I think there were about 4 slices of eggplant, and was served with really good garlic bread.

Our main courses came a few minutes later. My lasagna looked really big, I literallly said “whoa” when our waitress brought it. It was a really big dish. But it was actually because the plate was really shallow. But it was good this way because there was a lot of yummy cheesy topping – you can have some with each bite. It was a lot of food though. I think I was only able to finish half. I liked it quite a bit. It wasn’t spectacular but it was good (mostly because there was so much topping!). I noticed later on though that there was a huge whole bay leaf baked on top of my lasagna…

The Lamb Souvlaki was good too. The light came with a skewer of Lamb, rice pilaf, roast potatoes, Greek salad, and tzatziki. Beipas said it was good. I tasted a bit of the lamb and it was cooked a little bit more than I like it, but I’m not that big of a fan of souvlaki. But the overall flavour was good.

One thing that was kind of annoying was that our waitress’ response to everything we said was “For sure!”. Can I have some water? – “For sure!” Can I order this and that? – “For sure!” Can we just get the bill? – “For sure!” I swear she said “For sure!” to us at least 10 times… but she was nice. So did I like the restaurant? For sure!

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Porto Fino
9493 120 St.
Delta, BC

(604) 581-7555

http://portofinorestaurants.ca