Location Index
| Restaurant Guide Location Index |
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About this Restaurant Guide |
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| USA | |
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Greensboro, NC |
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Washington DC |
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Utah |
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Los Angeles |
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Spain |
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France |
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Uncle Orson's Restaurant Guide
La Madeleine
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s it possible to combine cafeteria-style service with credible California-French cuisine? I never would have thought so, until I stood in line with a tray in my hand at La Madeleine. This chain has several locations, but the only one I've been to, a couple of blocks up from the Reston Town Centre, is my favorite lunch place in Reston — even though it's next to Einstein's Bagels, which is tough competition for my lunch money any time!
What can you get? It's touted as a bakery, and the bread is perfectly fine, but what I go there for is the huge field green salad, tossed with just the right amount of dressing while you watch, and the amazing tomato soup. This doesn't stop me from getting the potato galette (the definitive potato pancake) or the chicken friand (a puff-pastry chicken pie without the pot), though finishing even half of the meal involves serious overeating, even for me. This is definitely fast food — yes, French fast food! — but when you're grabbing a bite to eat on the way from somewhere to somewhere, that's what you want, and we've never had to wait long for a table because the servers bus the tables so fast you'd think they were getting tipped (they're not).
In the Best Buy/Barnes&Noble shopping center just up the Reston Parkway from the Reston Town Centre, right next to Einstein's Bagels.