Return to Cafe Madeleine

Today 3/4 of the Educator GF's went out for a late lunch to celebrate some good news for TORC. Unfortunately, D was out of town, so it was just me, TORC and KD. A few weeks ago, I scoped out Cafe Madeleine...so it was there that we went today for a late lunch/early dinner.

Again, here is that awesome Shepard Fairey mural next to a courtyard of cute yellow bungalows:


Here's my post from last month. It was already 3:45'ish when we arrived. We didn't know they were going to close at 4 pm and they didn't tell us either. More on that later...

We placed our orders and sat outside. We were the only customers there. The French lemonade was KD's, while I had the canned Illy coffee (strong stuff!), and TORC's Orangina.

KD ordered the Arugula Salad which came with chicken, blue cheese, walnuts, sliced pears (those were really good and buttery soft) and some sort of mustard dressing. She really enjoyed her salad. Although I didn't have any of it, other than a small pear slice, the flavors sounded intriguing, especially since aurgula is so strong. I tend to like salads that have texture (nuts) and some sort of sweetness (pears). The mustard added bite and the blue cheese added creaminess.

TORC got the Ham panini which had a grainy mustard spread greens, cheese, and a tomato slice inside. I think I will try this next time we go since it was really delicious.

You can see the mustard....

Well, since I liked the beef crepe so much last time, I got it again but in panini form (beef, tomato, caramelized onions, greens, and horseradish).

This time I asked for my salad to be plain. The downside to this was that there were a few pieces of salad that looked "off". I picked them off my plate. You know how it is when you see some greens that are on the verge of slimy because they were wet and probably stuck together? Well, I had a few pieces of those. Ugh.   I liked the bread though - nicely toasted. The crunchy top and the beef

So back to the time thing. When we got there it was around 3:45 pm. We weren't aware that they were closing soon. When we walked in, we were the only customers and I had the feeling that they were ready to close up shop and then we came along. I told the server that we'd probably order a dessert crepe for later. But unfortunately, there was no later because when we went in at 4:30 to order our crepe, I noticed that their desserts in their cases were already wrapped in plastic and that they were cleaning up. I had to ask if they were already closed and the girl replied that they were.

I liked the colors of the VW van across the street (below):

I guess we should have been more aware of their hours? But a small warning might have been nice. Especially if we were going to order a dessert crepe, I could have ordered it ahead of time and they could have given it to us. We were a bit disappointed and I also felt that they weren't that nice about it and had the feeling that they wanted us to GTFO.

So instead of having a dessert crepe, we headed off to get some ice cream a block away at the Daily Scoop...