La Malbec Bar and Restaurant — Restaurant in Bloomsburg

Came in for brunch and was pretty disappointed. The restaurant decor is beautiful; however, there was a music act at the front entrance instead of a host stand or a host, who I did eventually find at the far end of the bar. The duo playing music was enjoyable however a host stand in the front of the restaurant would have been more suitable. The host, although hard to find, was quite friendly brought me a water glass and a menu and said the waiter would be right with me. The restaurant was very slow and I noticed only one table other than mine. The host came back after a few minutes and said that he would actually be waiting on me and filled my water glass. I'm not sure if the smell of unwashed bar rag came from whatever the water was poured from or the water glass itself but it was pretty disgusting and I only realized that it had been coming from the water glass after I had already drunk half of the water (I had initially assumed the smell was coming from passersby as I was sitting on the front patio). I ordered a bellini which arrived with approximately 25% something bubbly and 75% mango nectar and was so sweet it was almost undrinkable. The menu looked tasty and I was torn between the steak and eggs and the eggs benedict. The eggs benedict touted something called Taylor Ham which I was told by my waiter / host was similar to Canadian bacon. I wasn't sure about the Taylor ham so I went ahead and ordered the blue crab as an add-on and specified that I would like my eggs on the more done side with solid whites. When I received my entree the Hollandaise sauce was broken and looked like congealed fat. The English muffin was completely saturated in the butter from the broken sauce. What was called Taylor Ham (which I looked up online while waiting for my food and was described as a ham roll resembling a cross between spam and bologna, yuck!) on the menu was actually Canadian bacon to my relief. I decided to give the crab a try and was very unpleasantly surprised to see that it was shredded not lump and tasted like it came out of a can. I don't think that it had "turned", but it was absolutely not fresh, was super salty and did not taste good. I scraped the crab off and decided to give the rest of it try. The eggs were so runny and I had to scrape a lot of uncooked whites off to the side. The uncooked yolk combined with the broken sauce and the saturated English muffin was almost too much bear. As my waiter / host never came back to ask how my food was and I was very hungry, I ended up finishing what I could. When he finally did come over after I was finished to ask me how it was I told him that the eggs were not cooked as I had asked and that the sauce was broken. He went to talk to a manager about it, who never came to the table, and came back saying that the manager had issued 25% off, which I suppose was nice since I ended up eating most of the entree. The bottom line is that I could have made a much better eggs benedict at home and maybe enjoyed the band with a Bloody Mary (which the woman seated at the next table over had and said was fabulous) and an already full belly instead. I certainly will not be eating there again anytime soon despite the very nice host / waiter and...

Update: removing a star for food and service as I tried the place again and had to leave hungry due to being served a steak so incredibly salty that it was inedible. Also had a request of no potatoes that the waitress didn't honor.

Great atmosphere but seems understaffed and serves terrible food. I'm convinced they can make better food than what we received this evening - at least based on the other good reviews they've received. What we were served did NOT look like the other photos posted.

Starting with the service, the waitress was very friendly, but it took maybe 10 minutes to approach our table and offer water. Neither my partner or I recall seeing another server during our visit, which obviously isn't enough for the number and size of tables this evening. The environment was actually great, though. Good lighting with nice fixtures, comfortable seating with tables that were well-spaced and didn't wobble.

Next to food - we got the crab cakes as an appetizer, which came with a fried outer shell that truly made it taste like something you'd get from Long John Silver's. It also came with a salad, which was nice, except that the dressing tasted off. The waitress asked if we were salad people, seeing that we didn't eat it. I replied that we are not...

I got the lamb chops and was also disappointed. Don't get me wrong, they didn't taste bad, but they didn't taste great. I think I was expecting something fantastic, and thus was severely disappointed when something of average quality came out... The rice under it was also rather tasteless. I enjoyed the textures of large pieces of mushroom, but I think they usually taste like whatever you cook them with, so they didn't taste like much at all.

My partner loved her scallops, but said the risotto it came with wasn't anything to write home about. The best part of the meal was the piece of cheesecake my partner ordered and liked so much she ate the whole slice!

I ordered a Manhattan, which I expected to have 4 ingredients, but it came out tasting floral to the extreme, like someone tried to get fancy with a simple drink. 3rd worst Manhattan I've ever ordered, and I've ordered many.

Overall, I would recommend to skip trying this restaurant. Paying $190 including a tip is far too much for food that tastes like something I could prepare...

I had a really nice time at this restaurant. My boyfriend took me here for Valentine’s Day dinner. I moved from nyc so I was a little skeptical at first. There’s not a lot of “luxury restaurants” around here. This restaurant was refreshing and the food was delicious. We arrived about 9/9:30. The bar is absolutely beautiful and the mixologist is great at his job. The host was very polite and greeted us promptly. She asked if we wanted to sit on the left or right side of the restaurant. The right side was busy, I don’t like crowds bc social anxiety. The left side was very open with one table seated. I asked to sit on the bar side. She sat us right next to that seated table. I wish we had a little bit of space, we could hear their whole conversation. Plus we didn’t want to be too loud bc we were so close, but it’s okay. Once they left we opened up a little bit more, and had lots of laughs with the staff. My boyfriend ordered lamb and he said it was the most tender he had ever, he was surprised. I ordered a caprese salad and didn’t exactly enjoy. They gladly switched my order, no issue. We had a bottle of rose and a FEW mixed drinks. My boyfriend ordered the cheesecake and he said he enjoyed it. We drove about 50 mins to an hour to get here. We had trouble finding parking, after reading reviews, I see they have a parking lot but we weren’t sure if it was theirs lol. He was surprising me and had to switch restaurants last minute. Special shout out to Patrick, Jared and Chad! They made our evening and first time here so fun. They are extremely kind, polite and welcoming to everyone. I would, will be back soon! Thank you for your patience, conversation and great service. They seem very passionate about quality and I like that. It’s rare out here in my...