La Boheme — Restaurant in Palo Alto

I don't usually like to say negative things about independent restaurants -- it's hard enough to keep a place open during a pandemic -- but I think the experience merits it in this case. I took my sister, a Stanford student, here as a treat recently (and to encourage her to practice her French). There are a lot of French restaurants in Palo Alto, all around the same price point, but this was the only one accepting online reservations at the time. (I later realized that the other restaurants just had their OpenTable accounts turned off and had plenty of space available -- oh well.)

We started with oysters, which were poorly shucked and not very fresh -- every bite had big pieces of shell. Not a good start, but we waited to pass judgement until the main course. And waited. And waited. We ended up waiting more than an hour after we placed our order, even though we were one of the first parties to sit down for dinner service, watching other tables get their food all the while, before I asked a waiter if something was wrong. Soon after the dishes arrived. By then, of course, our carafe of water was empty, and it was never refilled.

We went for the classics: steak-frites, moules frites and magret. The mussels were the best dish: plump and tender. The duck and steak were not bad, but cooked more than necessary and served with very sweet sauce and limp salad. This would have been fine if they were at a price point that allowed for overcooked meat and limp salad, but both dishes were $35, well above how much they would cost at a typical bistro in the metropole. Still, nothing was unpleasant enough to complain about -- not that anyone asked. We only saw a waiter once more, when he came to collect our plates as soon as we were close to finishing. (I still had my fork in said salad when he asked to take my plate, but felt I ought to accept -- my welcome was clearly overstayed.)

Based on the other reviews and the friendly service we saw the other tables receive, I'm not sure what we did to merit such cold treatment. My sensitive fiance felt very sad afterwards and wondered if it was because he was wearing shorts. (We were the youngest people there, but not the most casually dressed -- and I don't think we looked like we couldn't foot the bill.) Not wanting to assume it was because of our age or race, I have a feeling it may have been because my sister and I were doing our best to speak very bad and somewhat loud French to each other, and that may have offended the French owner. I've had similar experiences trying to speak Moliere's tongue around the hexagon. But I'll keep plugging along at this inhospitable language...

Decent food, average service. Nobody came by to offer to refill our water glasses throughout our meal, which is a pretty basic thing (even most humble breakfast diner places will try to make sure you at least have that). I suppose service suffers a bit during busy times like Sunday lunch, which is when we dined there. I had the omelette special of the day which had pork sausage, spinach, tomatoes, and Swiss cheese. As this is a French place, I was expecting a delicate, slightly runny omelette, but what I got instead was a thick, chunky, overstuffed omelette, closer to the American style. It lacked a bit of salt so I couldn't eat it without the ketchup that they served with it. The omelette was served with potatoes which were also undersalted.

Most of the dishes came with a mini pastry on the side. Mine came with a butter croissant and another person in our party got a pain au chocolat with his steak dish. The pastry itself was good, but the chocolate in the pain was mediocre. I regret to say that the pain au chocolat in the local Starbucks stores uses better chocolate. 😬

My group also ordered the quarter beignets which were quite good. They are like rectangular-shaped doughnuts topped with a generous amount of...

Indoor seating provides a very warm and cozy atmosphere. Other than the atmosphere, the rest of the experience left us wondering how this Cal Ave 'institution' is still in business. I'd had lunch there a few years ago and the food was tasty. Wow, what a difference this time...I was so disappointed with our recent dinner that I'm compelled to share my experience with others. Perhaps the owner and/or chef has changed over and isn't concerned with providing a decent product. Other than the French onion soup (which was okay), the food was mediocre at best and horrible at worst. The petrale sole dish (daily specials menu) was dry and flavorless as was the side of polenta served with it. Do NOT order this dish. The salmon (main menu) was unremarkable. The salmon didn't taste fresh and the veggies were undercooked and flavorless. Again, do NOT order this dish. Even the Salade Boheme ($18) was disappointing. I'm usually quite easy to please so long is the food is prepared with the intent of pleasing the customer. However, this experience seemed like they were serving old/expired $35-40 dishes reheated from previous nights. And the service...like the food flavorless and...