Q: You are given a review about a place. You need to provide a rating from "1 star" to "5 stars" for this place.
You know those restaurants you go to, eat at, aren't particularly thrilled or disappointed, and the restaurant kind of just disappears from memory?

This is how I felt about Cafe Monte the first time I dined about one year ago. Service was on the slowish side, and the croque madame was like something I could make at home. It was good, but not memorable enough to go back for another one.

I recently went back for take-out, after a French onion soup craving. To my surprise, the menu had expanded and now included some items like a lobster Louie salad, which I was so looking forward to, paying an $16 for. A good crab Louie on the West Coast is well worth $16.

Unfortunately, it wasn't worth it here. The soup was pretty standard to be honest. Granted it was takeout, so the soup wasn't steaming, but even if it were served fresh from the kitchen, the cheese would at least have a nice golden brown coloring to it. The cheese on this thing was white as white/pale yellow as can be. I would pay $4 for a cup of this stuff...not $7.

Moving on to the salad. I was more than bummed. The Louie usually has avocado, hard boiled eggs and sometimes asparagus and some other variations, depending on where you get it.

Here at CM, there was just leaves...and chopped lobster meat. The lobster was plentiful, don't get me wrong, but it was as tough and bland as rubber pencil erasers. I felt ripped off. I could envision the chef taking salad leaves out of a bag, and sprinkling pre-boiled lobster on top.

Hmm, so far not so good. At the time I was HON-gree, so I ate both. On to dessert.

The dessert case here is beautiful. There was french macaroons and coconut macaroons, various croissants and fruit tarts, and a bottom row of cakes. I chose a slice of carrot cake, and a blueberry muffin to take home to my husband who likes a good blueberry muffin.

I'll tell you. The cake could very well have been from COSTCO. No, wait, the COSTCO carrot cake is better. I'm not kidding. This one was dry and the only saving grace was the frosting, which moistened things up. The blueberry muffin too was dry as if it weren't fresh. (It was $5 badly spent, and I was mad at myself.)

TIP: I should have asked if they made their pastries in-house, or bought them from someone else. Also ask when they were made.

The saving grace? My kind server who prepped my to-go order, gave me two free French macaroons. Were they light and tender on the inside? Yes. The shells, nice and crisp? Indeed. The flavor? Very off. I think a good macaroon should have a distinct flavor, and if you don't know what flavor it is, could recognize it. I couldn't tell if it was apricot or honey...heck, it could have been ground beef flavored, and I wouldn't have known.

The reason I give CM 3 stars versus 2, is the good service I got the second time around from the server and man at the host stand. The order was about 7 minutes late. (I called and was told it would be 20 minutes, it ended up taking 27 minutes. Hey, my car has a timer in it so I took note!) The ambiance is quite nice, very Parisian. I've heard nice things about their brunch and perhaps it's true. For dinner, these two items which are pretty difficult to get wrong, fell short.

The star count could go up if perhaps CM thought of itself like a bistro, and lowered their prices. Focusing on a few really great items and making things more consistent.

Go if you have a BOGO coupon from one of those coupon books or group-buying sites. I would spend my $ on LuLu if you really wanted some French.
A:
3 stars