[Rosemead] [French] La Vie French Restaurant

La Vie French Restaurant
2547 San Gabriel Blvd
Rosemead, CA 91770
(626) 571-1180

La Vie is a Vietnamese owned French restaurant.  It's located in a tiny strip mall.  The restaurant doesn't have nice decoration, but it's known for their reasonable price.  I've been here once with friends before and thought the food was just alright.  My sister picked La Vie to celebrate her birthday with family because she heard good things about the restaurant from her friends.  Another chance for me to sample the food again.


Bread

The small restaurant was about half full on that Friday night.  Our waitress was polite and friendly.  French bread was served after we placed our orders.  We held off on the bread until our appetizer arrived.



Les Escargots de Bourgogne ($8.95)

Escargots cooked in garlic and herbs butter.  It smelt so good, and tasted even better.  We love dipping the french bread in the garlic herbs butter. 


La Soupe a L'Oignon Gratinee ($4.95)

Each entree comes with soup and salad, and dad ordered an extra French Onion Soup.  I didn't try it.  But dad said it was great and finished the whole bowl.


Le Potage du Jour

Soup of the Day was included with the entree.  I think it was potato leek soup.  It didn't have much flavor.  Because dad ordered the extra onion soup, he didn't get his free soup.  But I think they should've asked if he still wanted his regular soup instead of just skipping it.


La Salade

Salad was fresh, but portion was very small.  The sweet creamy dressing was delicious.


Seafood Paella ($24.95)

Mom ordered the special of the day, Seafood Paella.  We were surprised at how small the portion was.  Also the seafood wasn't fresh at all, especially the mussels.  The mussels had a weird funky taste to it.  We ended up not eating it at all.  This was the most expensive dish of the night, also was the worst.  We had a feeling that the "special of the day" was just the restaurant trying to get rid of their leftover food.


Le Lapin Chasseur ($19.95)

Dad went for the rabbit when he saw it on the menu.  He mentioned that he had rabbit once before in Oregon.  It was the most delicious meat he's ever had.  Super tender and tasty.  I made some "that's yucky" faces as dad was describing it.  Rabbits are so cute!  How can you eat them?  So this dish was also a big disappointment.  Dad took a bite and immediately said, "this is not how rabbit supposed to taste like."  I took a tiny little bite.  It tasted like... chicken.  It was cooked in some kind of wine sauce, but the sauce wasn't that good.  Dad only ate half of it and didn't even want to take the leftover http://www.eileenlikestoeat.com.


La Carre D'Agneau Bergerie ($20.95)

Sister ordered roasted rack of lamb.  This dish was pretty good.  Lamb was very flavorful and tender.  The only complaint was the portion.  Only two pieces of lamb in the plate for $21.


Le Canard au Grand Marnier ($19.95)

I had the roasted duckling with orange sauce.  This dish was pretty good as well.  Duck was tender, but mom thought the skin was too fat.  I liked the dish.


Souffle au Grand Marnier ($7.00)

La Vie is famous for their souffle.  This was one of the best souffle I've ever had.  Puffy, airy and soft.  Really really yummy.


Coffee

Entree also included coffee or tea.  The coffee was perfect with the souffle.



So there were some hits and misses.  My parents didn't like the restaurant at all.  Sister and I thought it was ok.  I would definately come back for their souffle.  But for the food.... maybe not.  Even though the food was a little disappointing, I had a great time hanging out with my family.  Happy birthday, Angie.

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