Restaurant Caspar Brambani in Sandvika: Better than Expected

Yesterday we went to Sandvika Storsenter for a shopping day. For lunch we decided to go away a bit and eat at the Caspar Brambani restaurant. It is only 5-10 minutes away and it is a nice walk (over a river and so on).

Also, the restaurant has a very nice terrace outside at the back, where children can play (sandbox, tree house, big chess board, table tennis...). Yesterday, there was even a live concert!

Live concert

Thr restaurant was full and we couldn't find a table. So we just sat somewhere and ordered some pizzas.

Barnepizza, 95 NOK

The children pizza was better than expected. Not sweetened to please children, just the "authentic" pizza taste. It was also pretty big.

Scampi Pizza, 165 NOK

My wife and I shared a "scampi pizza" and here too, I was pleasantly suprised. It wasn't with small shrimps bug big king prawns! It also had some tomatoes with garlic that went well with the pizza and with the prawns.

Example of what children can play with

The restaurant was named the best Sandvika's restaurant 2014, something I didn't know yesterday. It is a shame we only ordered pizza (pasta looked good, fish and ships was popular, ...) but well, that gives us a reason to go there again :)

Official Website: http://restaurantbrambani.no/

Olivia Hedgehaugsveien: a Cosy Place for Italian Food

I have already reviewed Olivia Tjuvholmen on this blog but thought I would write a few rods about Olivia Hedgehaugsveien too as we were there a few days ago. My son wanted a pizza and as we were in Bogstadveien, we decided to go to Olivia. The weather was really nice and we knew they had a nice terrace.

We started with a plate of cheese and ham:

Salumi e Formaggio, 155 NOK

I really liked it. It came really fast, the cheese was good, the ham was good, the toast/bread was good... Perfect while waiting for the main dishes. There were 3 types of cheese and 2 types of ham. I am not sure if this is intended for 2 or 3 persons as there were 3 slices of ham of each type but only 2 toasts. But well, it was nice for us 3 (2 adults and 1 child).

When it comes to the main dish, my wife ordered pasta with seafood:

Frutti di Mare, 179 NOK

She didn't say much about it but liked it.

I went myself for a classic:

Pasta Carbonara, 175 NOK

But actually this version was a bit original because they made their pasta carbonara with... squash! I actually liked it because it was giving a little "healthy" touch to an otherwise quite heavy dish. But well, if you don't expect it, it may surprise you.

My son wanted a pizza with corn and... sausage?! Not sure where this idea came to him (probably TV or something) but they didn't have corn and the only "sausages" they had were spicy ones (kind of salami type). So we ended up ordering a normal "barnapizza" with ham:

Barna Pizza, 100 NOK

And well, he was happy with it, so it was a good choice. The fish shape is made in other Olivia restaurants.

The service was fine and it was great to be out in the shadow (under the sun would have been too hot). All in all, as I said in the title, Olivia in Hedgehaugsveien (near Bogstadveien) is a cosy place to have Italian food.