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Friday, June 12, 2009

Rocco's, Webster

Rocco's Pizzeria on Urbanspoon
Rocco's (not to be confused with Rocco, which is an upscale restaurant doing brick-oven pizzas on Monroe Ave. near downtown Rochester) is on North Avenue in Webster, not far from Rhino's. It appears that this used to be an outpost of Guida's (haven't gotten there yet), but no longer. Meanwhile, Guida's has since opened a new location in Webster, so I'm not sure how this place ended up as Rocco's.
Be that as it may, how's the pizza? Well, not bad. Rocco's is another big-slice joint, but it's one of the better ones I've tried.
Rocco's "huge" (or is it "huuu - gia!"?) slice is basically two slices out of a large pie, that simply haven't been cut in two; in other words, the pie from which it's cut isn't especially huge, it's just that it's been cut into quarters rather than eighths.
Though big in surface area, Rocco's huge slice is not particularly thick, heavy, or overloaded with toppings, fortunately I say. Rocco's had several different slices available on my lunchtime visit, and I opted for pepperoni, which looked to be the freshest, as usual.
The crust was mildly browned on the bottom. It was pretty thin overall, though of somewhat uneven thickness, with some spots more thick and chewy, and others so thin that my slice spontaneously tore as I was holding it. It was pretty floppy, with a soft texture, though it did have some bready flavor, and the edge had a bit of crunch to it.
The sauce was applied a little heavily, and a little sloppily, too, as you can see from the photo - it nearly came to the outer edge in some spots, and was a good 2+ inches from the edge in others. It had a very noticeable tomatoey/herbal flavor reminiscent of a slow-cooked spaghetti sauce. The mozzarella cheese was just a bit browned but not burnt, which is how I like it. The pepperoni was pretty basic.
Rocco's has an almost intimidatingly long menu, with everything from pizza, subs and wings to pasta, tacos and fajitas, and even turkey dinners, something I hadn't seen at a pizzeria up until now. The list of pizza toppings and specialty pizzas is likewise lengthy, and includes something called sweet-and-sour pizza sauce (which frankly doesn't sound good to me at all) and six kinds of peppers (which sounds very good).
I'm usually skeptical of places with long menus - I figure you can't do that many things and do them all well - but as I said this wasn't bad, especially compared to other big-slice places. It seemed to me that a little more care could've been taken with the pizza - more uniform thickness, more careful spreading of the sauce and cheese, for example - and it was a tad underdone on the bottom, for my taste. But it had a good flavor, and I had no serious complaints. I'll give it a C+.
Rocco's Pizza & Pasta, 195 North Ave., Webster. Sun. - Thu. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 11 p.m. Phone: 872-2210

4 comments:

  1. I had the cup style pepperoni slice which was huge! Crust was very crunchy towards the butt end, but tasted like crunchy toast and wasn't too chewy. Cheese and sauce were balanced but the crust could have held more. Very good pizza.

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  2. I thought the staff there was rude and miserable. They seemed bothered by telling us what the pizzas they had premade were. No thank you's after we paid and the place is filthy. We are never going back!

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  3. went out of business according to rocwiki.
    apparently a salvatores now

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  4. Thanks - Salvatore's marches on ...

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