My friend told me about a Vietnamese family run French bistro hidden in a strip mall in a working class neighborhood with predominately Asian eateries. Have to admit now I’m ashamed that I didn’t come here sooner! Joan and I took our parents here. The menu is classic French, each entree costs around $15-19 (soup, salad and coffee included), what a deal! The wine I had was $4 a glass.
Lentil Soup and Salad, pretty good!
Escargot is amazing! Sizzling, buttery and delicious!
Lobster Tail, fresh and perfectly cooked, so good!
My Roasted Lamb Chop is so good! Tasty, juicy, tender~ The sauce is a little garlicky for my taste but it’s minor. The sides (mashed sweet potato, potato gratin) are good too.
Roasted Duck and Scallop and Shrimp.
Thankfully we spotted the Grand Marnier Souffle from neighboring tables early on so we place an order at the beginning. It’s simply one of the BEST souffle I’ve ever had. Incredibly fluffy, heavenly! I can eat 5 of these by myself.
The quality of the cooking is definitely a pleasant surprise from a hole-in-a-wall place and price like this. It reminded me of Eagle Rock’s Cafe Beaujolais, but I like La Vie more. It’s good solid classic French bistro cooking. The interior was a bit of 70s Asian kitsch (Feng shui fish tank at entrance?) and definitely not romantic, but it’s clean, casual and the staffs are very friendly. I’m actually moved by the ‘big family’ feeling from the other customers (lots of white hair patrons), they all seemed to be long time regulars who knew the owners well. Reservation is a MUST. There were so many “no reservation” people who got turn away and the disappointment on their faces were heartbreaking…
La Vie (626) 571-1180
2547 San Gabriel Blvd #A Rosemead, CA 91770
The interior and the food definitely don’t match! Very weird! ^^;;; Though the scallop and prawn looks a bit chinese. $15-19 is really a good deal!
Wahahaha, you have roasted lamb with a sauce but it is redundant? ^^;;
Is it cream that comes with the souffle? Why would you need that?
I’ve only had Escargot once and it tasted like…..
I wondered if it was how it’s supposed to taste or if it was just bad cooking, but now I know that it can taste good, so I’m glad!
(something to look forward to eating in the future^^)
haha for me salt & pepper roasted lamb is the best, I should learn how to cook that myself. The cream were pour inside the souffle, so the sauce soaked through the inside.
Oh val escargot have no taste, just a unique texture and fresh taste (stronger and not as slippery as Konjac is the comparison I can think of), that’s why you need all that buttery garlic chicken broth sauce to spice it up. It usually can’t go wrong, as the sauce is so heavy and tasty. Maybe the one you had…was kinda mushy and rotten, hence it tasted gross? ^^;;
uhh…it tasted like dirt.
I thought since snails eat dirt, that’s why they taste like it ^^;;
so it’s supposed to have no taste, huh…..
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