Madeleines Restaurant

Pros: -a friendly, attentive, and knowledgeable server -great wine list -perfectly cooked scallops, foie gras, new york, and duck -great cheese plate -amazing dining room and fire place Cons: -stale ciabatta bread to start and what tasted like unfiltered tap water -sides were a bit unimaginative with the new york A few things we noticed: Our bill was hand written, which was an odd way to finish a high end dining experience. Chef Claud ,I assume it was, seemed to be in the dinning room most of the night acting as more of a sommelier than cook which is nice to see in thePasadena area. more

I went to Madeleines on New Years Eve 2006 with a group of 11 people. I ordered the NY Steak cooked medium. It came out rare so I sent it back to get cooked a little more. It came back less than 2 minutes later and it was well done. I'm pretty sure they microwaved it. It tasted pretty aweful. I had the chocolate cake ($8) for dessert. It was so small it was about 4 bites total and also wasn't very good. Three of the people had stomach problems after eating their meal that night. Also note they have no vegetarian entrees on the menu. I had made a reservation in advance and they charged $100 on my credit card, which was fine. When the bill came, they had not deducted the $100. I pointed this out and they said it was never charged. I told them to check again. They came back and apologized and said I was correct. I like the decor in this restaurant - kinda like an old mansion, but the food is so bad it's not worth going back. more

This new incarnation of Halie is tough to pin down - like before, there's a wine bar, a restaurant bar and the restaurant itself randomly scattered through the building; we ate in the restaurant so .. A lovely, comfortable room, high ceilings and enough noise-damping to avoid the cavernous echo that sometimes accompanies large spaces like this. We had a charming and attentive waitress who was happy to move us to a table closer to the fireplace (it was a very cold evening) and seemed really genuinely interested in making sure we had everything we needed. The by-the-glass wine list doesn't seem to be the 50-choice version as mentioned by another reviewer here, but there's enough interesting choices to keep most people happy. We went for a viognier each to start, and a meritage to follow, both were good (and nice Reidel glasses also!) We chose a mixture of menu items and specials for appetizer and entree, and were slighly disappointed by most of them - the "Onion and Olive Tart" wasn't a tart at all, merely a base of a circle of puff pastry topped by an oddly underseasoned onion mixture. Seared sashimi was also strangely bland. Our entrees of pork chop with cabbage and monkfish were 50-50, the chop was great, the monkfish itself fine, but the accompanying diced vegetables were close to seriously undercooked, and again oddly flavorless. Things perked up with a flawless cheese plate from the dessert menu, and a great idea - a tasting flight of four choices from the port, dessert wine and sherry list, a real pleasure. So we left with an odd mixture of opinions - lovely place, nice people, some really underflavored food but some great cheese and wine. The title of the review, by the way, was what we were told by the hostess when we arrived. It seemed to sum up some of the confusion of Madeleines - you're not quite sure what to make of it. Pros: Dessert Wine Tasting, Cheese Selection Cons: Some underflavored dishes more

bring you significant other here. you will fall in live over and over again. great food, the bar and the bartender were amazing, best service in la . the food is pricey. but it tastes sooooo yummy!. good place for a first date. very nice wine list, the selection is amazing!!! go here at least once!!! Pros: atmospere, bar, food Cons: pricey more

If you go the wine bar on Friday it's usually busy, but during the week it's not so busy and you can get the best wine in Pasadena at a price we can afford. It's kind of new Orleans style is wonderful. The dining room is gorgeous, dark burgundy color with ceilings that are at leaste 20 feet high. We loved our experience here and the staff was wonderful. Claud Beltran is the chef and Mike Farwell was handling the wines. I think it's the best place in town, we love it. Pros: Wine selection, Ambience, Service more

Just like walking into a great restaurant in Southern France. You can even get many wines from there. We had a great meal, but the wine list is amazing. This restaurant was Halie before, but it's much better now. We had a couple of wine from Luberon and Rhone that were astonishing and they were only $7.00 a glass. We loved this place. Pros: Wine List, Cuisine, friendly more

We like Restaurant Halie, but we love Madeleines. The changes are signficant. They were building a new bar in the old room off the patio that looked sort of like the wine bar. We sat in the main dining room and enjoyed Chef Claud Beltrans men immensely. Especially the fried avocado appetiser. We had pork loin and halibut, both perfect and you can get about 50 wines by the glass in the dining room. We had eaten in the wine bistro a couple of days before and wanted to try the restaurant. Pros: Food, Wine, Decor more