ITALIAN IN LA

We were down in LA to attend Katie and Dustin's wedding a few weeks ago, and that also allowed us to spend a couple days hanging out with my family. I wanted to try out some of the new restaurants in LA, but my mom made reservations at an Italian restaurant that she had visited previously called La Botte. Hidden on a corner in Santa Monica, it's full of dark woods, and dark leather. When we entered, the restaurant was almost empty (we had an early reservations so my little sis and her boyfriend could drive back down in SD later that evening.)

The servers were really friendly, though, and unlike many places where servers will pretend like they can speak Italian, many of the servers actually were Italian. So were ordered a bunch of small plates to share, and my favorite one is below - a duck prosciutto.

It was pretty light and not too salty, so I like it quite a bit. Most people at dinner ordered just one course (a pasta course) for dinner, but I was hungry, so I ordered two courses. (God, is it any wonder that I've gained so much weight since leaving Boston?) At any rate, here's my crab and squid ink linguini. I found this dish to be allright - it was pretty basic and as I often say, I could have made it very easily at home.

Meanwhile, I also ordered a dish or roasted duck, which I liked a much more. The duck was well cooked and had very crispy skin.

I think our meal was actually pretty good. I think it's hard for me to judge restaurants when I don't pay for the meal, because that whole value thing goes out the window. But the bottom line is that my family had a good time eating there, the service was very friendly and I wouldn't mind going back.