la.foodblogging

Me: “Do you take Reservations for lunch?”
Him (with a French Accent): “No, we do not”
Me: “Are you usually busy?”
Him: “We are always busy, but we will find za place for you…”

After enjoying a $10 lunch special at Lilly’s in Venice, I can see why they are always busy. I am happy to report that they did, in fact, find a great place for us on their covered outdoor patio.

My mom and I were meeting for lunch a little while ago and I was in the mood to try something new. Joe’s, which is a couple doors down, has a $17 lunch special and I considered that. Instead, we went for Lilly’s and I’m glad we did.

Their lunch menu lists 5 choices, plus a daily special. Each choice comes with soup or salad.

The day that we went to Lilly’s the special was a filet of sole served atop a bed of risotto. My mom chose this option and was pleased. The portion was giant and topped with a light lemon sauce.

I chose the steak sandwich off of the menu. I like that they didn’t ask me how I want it cooked. I’m somewhat of the opinion that meat should be cooked how the chef wants to cook it. In this case it came out medium rare (Amreican medium rare, not Frech medium rare, which could be considered seared and bloody).

Starting the meal, I had the soup and my mom had the salad. The soup of the day was watercress soup and it was delicious. The first time I had watercress soup was actually on Abbot Kinney as well, at Axe (pretentiously pronounced Ah-shay).

The patio is a great place to eat. If I was a business person who took a lot of clients to lunch on my own dime, I would definitely pick Lilly’s. The combination of quality, atmosphere and price left this reviewer feeling more than satisfied.

Lilly’s French Cafe & Bar
1031 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 314-0004

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.