concerned_citizen
Member since Jul 30, 2009

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Re: “Rocco's Italian Restaurant”

It's 6:45pm on a Saturday night, and my wife and I decide to eat at Rocco's for the first time. We had some friends mention that it was a very nice, family owned Italian restaurant. For perspective sake, we're big fans of both Il Mercato and Da Maurizio in Halifax. Please allow me to highlight our experience at Rocco's last night.

I ordered a glass of Merlot, the Green Salad, and the Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato's. My wife ordered the Pasta Matriciana.

We were served an untoasted ciabatta bun cut in 4, which was obviously purchased in bulk either from Costco, or your food distributor. You call yourself a chef? There is absolutely no way! More like a lazy cook with little to no experience... Has the manager ever eaten at the restaurant? I couldn't believe this, given the prices. A real chef would be baking his/her own bread, or at the very least serve a high quality, warm bread. The butter was nicely whipped, though.

My next question: How can you screw up a salad? In an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay once said that if the salad isn't fresh, you can be confident your meal won't be either. All vegetables seemed to be cut earlier that day or week, rather than to order. The mushrooms were brown... BROWN! And the onions were cut in chunks, rather than intricately sliced like any real chef would have done. The cherry tomatoes were unripe. The salad was also overly sauced, which further made it an inedible mess. To top it off, the waitress, Jill, didn't apologize when she took my salad away after I told her it wasn't fresh. She just repeated "Oh... so it isn't... fresh.... I will convey that to the kitchen". The salad was thankfully removed from my bill.

The Pasta Matriciana was mediocre at best, but not very fresh or tasty. The onions, again, were cut in chunks, and the sauce was overpowered with bacon. The sausage was not an Italian sausage, and so my wife could not eat them. My Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato's had the same, unripened tomato's. I'm also puzzled about the chicken I had on my pasta. I'm convinced it wasn't cooked fresh, although it took nearly an hour to be brought to our table. What gives?

One last thing: both chandeliers have numerous burned out light bulbs. I could understand one, once in a while. But three?

I'm not sure if this restaurant is under new management, but you should either reconsider the prices for this low quality of food, redesign your menu, or hire a new chef to bring Rocco's back to life. My experience was not worth $60+.

I assure you, my wife and I will *never* return to your restaurant, as we will be enjoying quality Italian food and service at a better price at Il Mercato.