We both opted for water to drink, and deliberated over the menus for much longer than necessary.

Mine and B's problem is that because we rarely get to see each other, when we do, we could talk for Britain. It usually takes the waiter 3 times of asking if we're ready to order before we actually are.

We finally decided to both have exactly the same dishes. Feeling greedy, we opted to have a starter and went for the 'dolcelatte e noci aranchini', described as dolcelatte cheese & walnut risotto balls, red wine poached pears, frisee lettuce & grain mustard dressing. 

I'd had this starter before, a long time ago, and remembered how impressed I was by it. 

It's a really grown-up dish flavour-wise, and one that I've never noticed in any other Italian restaurant I've been to. The flavours are intense, and the risotto balls are gorgeously gooey, pairing beautifully with the poached pears. I was nearly tempted by the bruschetta, but then I thought that you can get that pretty much anywhere and so wanted to go for this more unique dish. 

For main, we went for one of the options on the lunch time specials menu - the 'Gnocci al pesto', composed of gnocci pan fried in garlic butter with cherry tomatoes, black olives, pesto, rocket & grana padano shavings. 

Gnocci can be stodgy and too filling sometimes, but this one had a beautiful crispiness to it from the pan-frying, and the portion size was spot on. I can be fussy with pesto because too much makes me feel a bit sickly, but the amount they added was perfect and complimented the tomatoes and olives wonderfully. 

We were both stuffed and groaning by the time we'd finished our main, and quickly declined the dessert menu. However, we then proceeded to chat for so long that our main had gone down a bit and we both wanted more and had to embarrassingly ask for the menus that we'd previously shot down so intently.  

I was feeling particularly naughty and opted for ice cream, whilst B chose a hazelnut latte.

You get 3 scoops, and I went for two chocolate and one cappuccino.

Unfortunately the chocolate was disappointing, but then I hit the last scoop, the cappuccino, and all was not lost. It was gorgeous - the perfect strength of coffee flavour. I wish I'd of just had all three as cappuccino now!

B's hazelnut latte, like my chocolate ice cream, was disappointing. However, that is mainly due to the fact that we went to Patisserie Valerie not long ago where she had the best hazelnut latte she's ever tasted and so now nothing compares. Maybe there will be a post on that place in the not so far future...

Overall, it was a delicious meal and we couldn't believe how reasonable the bill was when it arrived. Con Amici is our traditional meeting place now, and I'm sure we'll be back again soon.

Check out Con Amici's menus here.