An Italian restaurant in Canberra, a little overpriced!
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.
(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.
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!!
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.
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)
feralc4t said:
Possums are well loved here in NZ 😀
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Hemangini said:
looks yumm!
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Amy said:
What a delicious post, as always! You sure know how to take foodie photos, which is pretty challenging. 🙂
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Little Miss Traveller said:
The dishes look mouthwatering and how lucky to notice a possum so close to your car.
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sileas said:
I never had chestnut pasta but I do love chestnuts and pasta – so why shouldn’t it go together? 😉 Australia really has some interesting animals, I actually didn’t know about possums, only o-possums but that’s a whole different animal apparently…
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Great to hear. They are dear little animals.
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Thank you very much.
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Amy thanks so much for a lovely compliment. My friends always laugh as I make them wait until I take a photo of their food.
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Thanks Marion. Hope you have a lovely weekend. Thank goodness it’s Friday!!!!
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Hi Julia. I hadn’t heard of it before either but it certainly was nice. And glad I saw the possum. So cute!!!
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agenda19892010 said:
Dear. Very good description of Italian things. I don’t know if you asked the reason of the restaurant’s name’s. “Dimmi” meaning “Tell me” and is the first question asked to a people e.g.”What do you like eating?”….The second remark: I like very much the “gnocchi”. The third: in Italy a lot of restaurants and bars are managed by Chineses. Have a nice weekend.ciao.
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Rotwein Wanderer said:
Chestnut pasta sounds yum but $30?! Didn’t know anything about possum! Very Aussie and cute 🙂
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kokodynia said:
I see possum for the first time, so cute! Gorgeous, that you have captured it:)
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feralc4t said:
Sorry, I was being facetious, they really aren’t well loved here, like many introduced species they do not fit in pleasantly with the rest of the environment. Not their fault of course.
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Thank you.
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Thank you. Yep $30 much too expensive. Glad you like the possum. They are a little bit cute.
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Yes I was lucky because he/she was eating and didn’t care about me taking a photo.
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SueT唐 梦 琇 said:
Oh sorry I didn’t pick up on that. Ha ha. I completely understand though.
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feralc4t said:
Yeah, my bad..
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