La Gare

When reality and expectation don't mesh...that's the title of this review.

La Gare, taken from it's own search result touts "As Santa Rosa's most romantic restaurant, where thousands of couples over..." so my husband and I, having a night away from the child, decide it's the perfect place to try...we love French food and we love "most romantic".

We arrive and are taken to our table...expecting seclusion, dark lights, low soft music...we got... BAVARIA...umpa umpa, it looked like we were walking into Octoberfest...the tables are picnic like, the seats are hard wood bench style seats with hard backs with hearts cut out of them...the decor is definitely NOT romantic, NOT comfortable and the tables are on top of each other...so much so...that the "table-side" Caesar's Salad we ordered couldn't be made table-side...it was made behind us and I had to turn in my little bench seat to see it. And that, my friends, was the only place anything table-side was being made, so if you weren't lucky enough to be sat right close to it...you wouldn't be able to see your "show"; but other patrons could enjoy it.

We ordered a Mersault Madoc Chardonnay, and our waiter brought us a cabernet...need to work on teaching your wine list. Their premium chardonnay is Salmon Creek...that's not a premium chard..sorry. The overall wine list is to the lower end of the scale, with pricing a little on the high end, but you can find a fairly mediocre wine for not a super lot of money.

So now let's talk food. The Caesar's Salad ($12.50 for two) was very good and the serving was generous. We had a special Calamari ($8.95) well prepared and crisp along with Escargots de Bourgogne ($8.50), also well prepared (they use blue cheese as a secret ingredient so shhhhh....don't tell anyone); and our Tournedos de Boeuf a L'estragon ($24.50) was more then enough for us to split, they do charge a fee to split a plate, but they also bring you equal amounts of sides on the split plate, so that's a nice touch. We passed on dessert, our butts just couldn't take one more minute in those chairs, I mean it.

LindySez: The food is good, and well prepared. But don't expect romantic (unless you are into group romance); and don't expect comfort. And think about bringing in your own wine, it's worth the cost of corkage.

Usually our family favorite but our last visit was not good at all. The special my sister had for her birthday was a seafood dish and was over cooked and had little taste. My steak was not at all like they used to be also. The key to a great restaurant is consistant food and it fails at that. We will be heading for a new destination for celebrations, especially when spending $300 for six people.

Very pricey for the quality. They used canned mushrooms on a dinner entree and a sauce that tasted like it was from a can too. Also, my brother didn't even take more then 2 bites of his chicken and he's not a picky eater! Butter for the bread was supposedly homemade and organic but it tasted a lot like margarine (and I make butter). Total bill for 3 was 80 bucks. Not a memorable experience and no creativity to the meals. Wait staff was pretty good however.