Rococo

797 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn

To any of you who have tried to go out for dinner on a Monday night, I sympathise. Most restaurants choose Monday as their "closed" day, probably because no fresh produce comes in after Sunday, and also because most people tend to stay in on Monday evenings. Not D and I. Radical diners that we are, we chose Monday as our dinner day that week, and I had the arduous task of finding a reasonable place to eat.

Having decided the city was too far, I was reminded of Rococo, which I've know of for ages, have been to many times in the past, but recently have been overlooking. Certainly whenever I walk by on my way to Liar Liar there are always lots of people eating there, and their Urbanspoon page says they're open for all meals, seven days a week, which probably means they have consistent, reasonable food.

Once decided, I called them earlier that day (rather sceptically I must add), asking, "do we need to book?". The waiter suggested we could get a nicer table if we did. Honestly, I was expecting the restaurant to be rather empty, but when we arrived the place was HOPPING. On a Monday night!! I was amazed, clearly Rococo is doing something right. The space is very large, but the lighting was quite dim making it more intimate.

The dinner menu is divided up into a few entrees, pasta/risotto and pizza. Italian, in short.

D went with the chicken risotto with bacon, leek, fresh tomato and basil, which he said was very good. I had the prosciutto di parma pizza, a HUGE pizza (that D kindly helped me finish) with prosciutto, artichokes, fresh rocket, fior di latte (cow's milk mozzarella) and parmesan. Classic combination, executed well. The pizza had a nice, thin base, and I really loved the salty prosciutto with the parmesan and peppery rocket. However, the lighting was so dim (and I'm against using flash because the food looks so over-exposed) that my photos didn't turn out very well. If you can make out anything, below is my pizza.

If you're out for dinner on a Monday (or, in fact, ANY meal on ANY day of the week) and struggling to find a place, I'd suggest Rococo, nice food at reasonable prices.