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An Italian restaurant in Canberra, a little overpriced!

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Italian & Sons  is a very small restaurant in one of Canberra’s new restaurant districts.  It came highly recommended to me but was rather difficult to find as the shopfront is very small and the signage is barely visible.

The restaurant offers traditional Italian dishes and you can start with antipasti, followed by a range of organic cured meats made to strict Tuscan specifications. Then onto the main meals which include braised lamb, swimmer crab with ink linguine and roast pork alla Romana; all dishes served seasonally using Canberra’s  local and organic farmers which is wonderful.

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(source: http://www.dimmi.com.au)

There are only a few vegetarian dishes on the menu and all of them contain cheese of some sort [goats/reggiano/pecorini/buffalo mozzarella or buffalo milk ricotta] and with me not eating cheese unless it contains non-animal rennet, I was left with very little choice.

It is quite a sweet little restaurant and on this occasion, I dined with two of my girl friends; one I met in Beijing and the other I work with.  We try and catch up four times a year but usually manage only two, probably due to work commitments and just being busy with life.

My friends started off with an entree of lightly fried calamari with a parsley salad and a tangy aioli which they shared.  I decided on only having a main dish as I really couldn’t find anything on the entree menu I could eat.

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For my main meal, I ordered the chestnut pappadelle topped with a little house smoked buffalo milk ricotta and porcine and portobella mushrooms.  The pasta and sauce was good and I enjoyed the meal without eating the ricotta cheese.  I do love pappadelle pasta!!

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My friends ordered the suckling lamb with tomato and red wine ragu and the potato gnocchi with wild rabbit, pino grigio and rosemary ragu with pecorini.  Both meals they said were very good.

We took a look at the dessert menu and there were lovely things to eat, for example handmade pastries, tiramisu, cannoli, panna cotta and gelato.  The three of us decided not to order anything as of course we were all trying to watch our weight. And whilst our meals were filling, I thought $30 for a bowl of pasta was rather overpriced!!

After we left, I walked back to my car and along the way I saw the cutest little possum eating some grass.  It’s funny to see one so close to the city (about 1 km away) and also funny he/she didn’t move when I walked past; actually didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in me at all.

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The possum is a marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi (and introduced to New Zealand and China). The name derives from their resemblance to the opossums of the Americas and are typically nocturnal. Although opossums are also marsupials, possums are more closely related to other Australian marsupials such as kangaroos. (Wikipedia)