25 August - Monza, Leederville

Last night, we went to Monza in Leederville for Ah-Carley's birthday. The place looked a bit swanky and it was relatively quiet when we arrived. As the night went on, the place filled up and got a whole lot noisier. Also, we were right near the front door, and cigarette smoke came in from time to time from smoking patrons outside.

For an entree, CB and I shared an antipasto plate, and ordered an extra wedges afterwards. The antipasto plate wasn't too bad, the plate consisted of (from the top, clockwise): prosciutto, curry prawns, squid of some type, turkish bread, stuffed mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, artichoke, roasted capsicum, rocket and olives and fetta in the middle.

The prosciutto wasn't bad, although I must admit I haven't been a huge fan of it before.. (I much prefer pancetta). The prawns, squid, bread, mushrooms, tomatoes and capsicum were nice. I wasn't a fan of the artichoke, didn't try the olives and fetta (only like olives on pizza) and the rocket wasn't too bad, but would prefer it to be dressed.

The wedges were handcut and fried. Not as crunchy as say Terrazza, but not as "manufactured" as Terrazza either. The aioli was good, the tomato sauce came out of a bottle.

For a main, I went for a special. It was described as "a Mediterranean rack of lamb, on a chickpea patty, spinach and zucchini ribbons, pinenuts with tatziki and capsicum coulis. It was presented well but for me, the flavours didn't work well together. The coulis was sweet (and I much prefer savoury), and the chickpea patty was a bit bland. The rack of lamb was cooked well, pink in the middle and nice and browned on the outside. Overall, it wasn't bad, but wasn't as good as say the lamb shanks at Darlington Estate.

Would I go back to Monza? Probably not. A number of reasons, the noise when the place filled up, the amount of cigarette smoke pluming in when it was busy, the relatively expensive (but nothing to really rave about) food, and some aspects of the service weren't terribly flash.