La Dijonaise

06/20/08

Good, except...

by anne90034 at Citysearch

Cute little restaurant with pretty decent food. I had the chicken with Dijon mustard sauce, my only complaint would be that it was very salty!! I actually think it came from the chicken itself. It tasted like salt water injected chicken... Everything else was good, the sauce, the sides and the dessert, just didn't care for the low quality meat!

• Pros: Atmosphere, easy parking
• Cons: the salt-injected chicken..?

06/12/08

Horrible

by monavisionlosangeles at Citysearch

I will have to say that it is convenient to come here because it's around the corner from the work place, but the service is TERRIBLE. I mean it's one of those kind of places, you know the one where the employees think that you need them more then than they need your business. I walk in today with a friend of mine for lunch, and the place wasn't busy what so ever. We're asked to sit down, and the manager of the restaurant rudely says, "We're going to need you to move". I was completely put off by it because she didn't even say please or talk in a friendly tone for that matter. We are then asked to move to a seat where I'm having to sit closer to a stranger than the person I was with. We get up and move to a more open area, and the manager again rudely suggests us to move because the area is 'closed' off (Probably for more important customers). This place is RIDICULOUS. I would only suggest it if you guys want to pay a cheap 6 bucks for a vegan burger, but you're tolerance should be extremely high for the less than satisfactory service. I do highly recommend M Cafe on Culver Blvd next to Pacifico's, now this is a place with great quality food and service :)

• Pros: Cheap vegan burger
• Cons: SERVICE IS HORRIBLE, NEED A VERY HIGH TOLERANCE FOR IT

03/31/08

Consistently Spotty

by beachcruiser at Citysearch

I guess 'quirky' best decribes the food, service and atmosphere. The food is sometimes good, sometimes adequate and sometimes tasteless. On the plus-side: it's CHEAP! It's anyone's guess if you'll be served bread or not, and you must be assertive when asking for attention. I do have to admit that the quality is sliding fast. I wish it would be better but I don't wish for higher prices. So, it's hit-or-miss, basically. It has it's charms . . . .

• Pros: Inexpensive. Good for beakfast
• Cons: Quality of the food is slipping, service is sometimes BAD

12/28/07

go for the bread, but get it to go.

by reviewer25 at Citysearch

We really like this restaurant, and want to continue to do so, but they are making it so difficult. The service is really terrible. We have made excuses for them the past 2 times and after the last visit decided we won't be breakfasting there again. We will take bread and croissants home and serve ourselves. I'ts truly a shame.

12/19/07

NEEDS QUALITY CONTROL

by robert_tom at Citysearch

I am a positive person who loves food, loves cooking, and I?m a good home cook myself. On the positive side, I?ve been to La Dijonaise many times for LUNCH and have always had a good experience. Also positive is that tonight for DINNER (my first time having dinner here,) the all-Mexican staff was fast, attentive, friendly, and professional. Also, the dining room was lovely, as always.

That said, three of our ordered items were terrible, and should not have been served to any customer. The entrecote (rib eye steak with fries) was perfect. Exactly like in Paris. However, the coq au vin (half chicken in wine sauce) was more like ?coq au brown sauce.? It was salty and not much else. The bird itself was dry, there was none of the fruity or astringent or peppery taste that is expected of the wine sauce. The green beans on the side were so overcooked as to become soggy and brown. They tasted exactly like canned string beans. The cook should have been empowered to say, ?Wait a sec: this sauce is too salty, you can?t serve that.? Or ?these green beans have been overcooked and are brown. Don?t put those on someone?s plate.? Empower the cook and keep bad food from the customer?s plate.

I appreciate very much that La Dijonaise is not overpriced, in a town where most restaurants are. However, a positively-reviewed place like this should not be allowing these basic mistakes. The Napoleon for dessert was not flakey whatsoever. It was chewy, believe it or not, and tasted like only one thing: refrigerator. Ending the disappointing meal was a pair of hot chocolates, made with only Hershey?s chocolate syrup (which has almost no coco powder in it) and tepid steamed milk. I feel nauseous now, about an hour after the meal.

The owner needs to step up and tell the staff not to let old, dry, overcooked, or over refrigerated food leave the kitchen. I will continue to dine at La Dijonaise for lunch, but it will be a long time before I go back for dinner.

• Pros: good value, if your dish happens to be good; Lunch dishes tend to be excellent.
• Cons: hit-and-miss menu. Some items are not fresh/overcooked/old.

12/08/07

Poor quality food and service.

by alefeusch at Citysearch

I wish I could say better things about this place, as it is 2 seconds from where I work... but it's just plain old bad. They do a booming business, so you'd think everything would be fresh but it's not. Things always taste stale and food often comes out way undercooked-- I can't believe they still have an 'A'. Even the desserts, which look delicious, taste like they've been sitting in the fridge for days. To boot, they are full because of their location in the Helms Bakery so you actually end up waiting for this poor quality food only to be subjected to servers who believe you are privileged to be eating it! Not good.

• Pros: Location
• Cons: Everything else

07/02/07

Where's the flavor?

by docmarv at Citysearch

This was a very disappointing experience. If you're expecting a Paris-style bistro -- think again. The rib-eye steak, while wonderfully tender, tasted like nothing at all. The vegetables (beans and carrots) were soggy and school cafeteria quality. The frites were unsalted and boring. My companion had ahi tuna rolled in sesame seeds. Somehow, they managed to dry out the tuna even though it was served rare. We shared a crab salad appetizer. It looked nice on the plate, but the crab tasted like it came from a can. Someone in this kitchen has stopped caring, and has definitely stopped tasting the food before sending it out. What a shame...

• Pros: ample parking, decent pastries
• Cons: entrees are substandard

06/25/07

It used to be 5-star, but now 4-star for me

by luvocean at Citysearch

I go to La Dijonaise once in every 2~3 months for the last couple of years, but I feel like the quality of their food has dropped a little and still keeps dropping. Am I the only one who feels that way? They still have great service and all the good qualities that make it a nice casual French bistro. So I still go there, but I thought I wanted to complain just a little bit.

• Pros: lots of parking spaces, reasonable prices, good service, nice ambience, clean
• Cons: food tastes average now...

06/21/07

Love the food, but...

by heyhayles at Citysearch

My boyfriend and I have been to La Dijonaise maybe 5 to 10 times, usually on the weekends. Toward the beginning, we really enjoyed it. I love the food, the lunch/brunch prices are great, and it has a nice feel and decor. Also, we have no trouble parking in the parking lot on Helms between Washington and Venice, but as I said we do tend to go on the weekend.

However, the last few times we have been, we have had fairly negative experiences. There are problems with our orders, the server doesn't greet us, give their name, or sometimes even ask for our drink orders, and then never comes back after we've ordered, not even to give us the bill! We sat for a good 10-15 minutes waiting and finally asked a different staff member, who was very helpful. Perhaps it is primarily a function of coming at a busy time and/or one bad server, but this has certainly turned us off of La Dijonaise, not forever, but we're not going quite so frequently anymore. In my opinion, it's totally worth going for a casual lunch, but be aware that it's not always a stress-free experience.

• Pros: Good food, good atmosphere, good lunch prices, easy parking (at least on the weekends)
• Cons: Gets busy and crowded, had some pretty bad service a couple times recently :(

05/21/07

Never, ever get food to go.

by elijahsnow at Citysearch

I like the food at La Dijonaise. I love their pastries (with one exception: the nasty, days-old muffins on the top shelf of their baked goods). And I do like the service when I stop in for a lunch on weekdays.

What I don't like is how inexcusably bad La Dijonaise becomes if you ever eat their food outside of the bounds of their property. The 'to-go' counter is almost a figment of their imagination. Stepping up to the pastry counter to get a coffee and a pastry for takeout is an exercise in being ignored for a maddeningly long time. It's almost insulting to watch other customers come in after you and get waited on immediately. The error rate on orders to go is 1/5 going on personal experience. That's pretty high when all you're asking for is coffee and a pastry. I've soured a little on La Dijonaise with each visit, an opinion that would only go up in the case where I actually eat at the restaurant without waiting for their 'to go' service.

Moral of the story: Eat AT the restaurant and you'll find nothing wrong. Unless you order a muffin.

• Pros: nice atmosphere, very good food
• Cons: high prices, abysmal To Go service