In all the many, many years I have been trolling Santa Monica's Promenade, in search of shopping and people-watching and places to eat, it had never occured to me to stop in at Locanda del Lago, an Italian restaurant right in the thick of Santa Monica's shopping mecca. I was invited out to try some of their house specialties; it's Italian cuisine in the Lombardy style, which emphasizes ingredients like fish from Lake Como, veal, butter (rather than olive oil), and risotto (rather than pasta). more ›