Le Cordon Bleu

I graduated from the CCA in 96. It was hard work but payed off for me. You get out what you put in. I worked as line cook up to exec chef in my career. I have CCA to thank for teaching me the ropes, so to speak. When you graduate you are not a chef. That comes with experience. But i am now semi retired in that a do consulting work for chefs and restaurants. Now they pay me for what i know. If your considering a career in culinary arts, heres my nickels worth of advice, you better love to cook. Good luck. Chef Bubba

This review is for the Blue Ribbon kitchen one-day classes, namely the All-American Diner Pies class that a friend and I took, that the California Culinary Academy offers mostly on Saturdays from 9AM-3PM. My friend and I purchased a 2-for-1 TravelZoo deal, otherwise, the classes are $125 each.

It was easy to register for the class on their website, even with our online deal. They have a wide variety of classes to pick from, but the All-American Diner Pie class stood out for us. We drove to the class, but the Muni 19 runs right by the school as well. We arrived a few minutes early. Once you enter the building, there is not clear signage to the class, but ours was located on the 4th floor (signage said there are classes on the 2nd and 4th but no one was on the 2nd floor).

Our class was quite large so they split us up into two classes in order of last name, and we were paired with Chef Stephanie. She gave us a quick overview of the school, the class agenda for the day, and the layout of the kitchen. The best part of the class was watching her demonstrate making the 4 pies we were going to make later: lemon meringue, coconut cream, chocolate mousse. double crust apple pie. As she is a highly trained chef, it was an artful orchestration of starting one pie from crust to filling and in between starting the crust or filling for the next within a span of a couple hours for the four pies. I especially enjoyed watching her make the lattice pie crust for the double crust apple pie and whipping up the meringue. She kept things flowing, organized, clean and fun with her lightly sarcastic humor. And of course, we were able to taste the fillings before they went into the pie and the finished product pies after baking! Yum! :)

Then we broke into groups of 4 at the pie-making stations with all of the ingredients neatly provided in small containers, apples in a bowl, knives, cutting boards, all cooking pots and pans in the next room. We went at it! We doled out what everyone was doing, each making a crust, rolling it out and putting it into a pan to bake. We worked on the fillings together and were most proud of our own double crust apple pie complete with lattice top crust (please see picture)! Ours of course, could not compare to Chef Stephanie's pies but we gave it our best shot and it was fun to get our hands in and make these pies. After we were done, we took our finished products home in cake boxes - love!

Volunteer cooking school students help where they can, and they washed pots, pans and containers as we went along. Thank you to Chef Stephanie and all of the student volunteers for making this class so fun to take!

At the beginning of the class, they gave out a few Kitchen Passes where you can sit in an actual cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu and see what the students experience. I got a pass and just registered to go to a class next week so stay tuned for an update!

Me a couple years ago: first year of college with undeclared major, scared of the future, enjoyed cooking simple meals at home, loved food network.

I submitted my email and number for more info on the cordon bleu website and got a call the next morning at 7 AM. Grace wanted me to come in right away for a tour.

She was pleasant and the tour was nice, but the first red flag should have been the unhappy faces on the students. Throughout the tour she kept telling me about her own daughter my age, and how she wished her daughter would go to school here instead of a four year university. She wished her daughter was like me... Oh, how sweet.

Red flag number two, she asked me take an entrance exam... Additions and subtractions. She walked back to me and shrieked with excitement because I got a perfect score.

The cherry on top was when the wonderful tour ended and she asked for my clothing size. She fitted me in a school uniform and sat me down in the library in front of a computer. She coaxed me into applying by talking about the wonderful world of free tuition for now (student loans) and how young I am and how accomplished I will be when I finish. I didn't have much at the time but I think I paid $50 to apply. Shortly after, I did research at home and was horrified by all the articles written about this school.

Grace called me the next day to bother me about something and that's when I told her I wasn't interested in attending anymore. She got quiet, tried to persuade me back in but failed. She then told me that she was very disappointed in me then hung up. I'm thankful that $50 was all they took from me and I'm so sorry that they have taken more away from others.

I am currently a student at Le Cordon Bleu. I love it. It's sad to see a lot of the reviews on here. Like anything in life you reap what you sow. I learn something new everyday at Le Cordon. Do I expect to get a high paying job by getting a certificate in Culinary Arts? No. Like anything in life you have to put in the time to build a career and to build your skills. Are people in the back of the house underpaid? Yes. But that's not because of Le Cordon Bleu.

Any type of education is the beginning of a journey. What you do with it is up to you.

I don't know where.. but I read somewhere that someone had a decent meal here at a very reasonable price. So I thought why not give it a go. At $15 for 5 courses I was like...you can't even buy all the ingredients. (Avocados cost $1.50-2 each so $15 seemed like nothing)

Space:
Nothing fancy. Clean. It did feel a bit awkward having so few tables in such a large space. I almost felt like I was in some school cafeteria.

Service:
Except for having difficulty getting hold of them via phone, the service in the evening was excellent. The instructor came out and gave us suggestions and answered questions and it was all very nice.

Food:
Some people in my party thought food tasted gross. Particularly the chicken dish..which one person thought looked and tasted like dog food ((harsh!)) However for $15, most dishes were decent.

Pizza we had for appetizer and the fried mozarrella stick salad was pretty good.
Shrimp risotto...I initially thought that it was mashed potatoes because I couldn't taste or see rice grains that you should see with risottos. Flavouring was a bit bland too.
Tuna tartar - it was wayyyyyy too spicy and salty. There was a lot of soy sauce at the bottom.


For the entrees, initially we all picked a dish each. Then the instructor came out and said that for a "large group like ours" that he would recommend a sampling of ALL the dishes. We literally got 3 dishes of each main dish (there were 5) for the whole table. After that he said that if we wanted to try more of anything that we could. I felt like we were at a AYCE buffet haha.


- Shaking beef with crispy rice - not bad. Beef seasoning was a little too salty but totally edible
- Steak - probably the best entree out of the lot?
- Pork with polenta - it was okay.
- Chicken - definitely not their best...
- Fish - was okay.

Dessert was probably the best dish. It was some kind of an apple filled spring rolls with cream and honey? It was crispy, not too sweet and delicious.

The total came to around $20 per person for the meal which, considering the amount of food we got, was amazing.

Ohhhh and they are very generous with their wine pours too. Half glasses are $3-4 each (and I'd say it's equivalent to a single glass at a normal restaurant). Their full glass was literally to the brim. I was nicely buzzed with a glass of wine here.

Would I return?.. That's a tough one. While I thought the value was great, the food wasn't amazing. If I feel like cheap dinner but don't feel like fast food, then yes I would probably come back.

School is a joke, costs a fortune and has horrible reputation within industry as a chef puppy mill, honestly people in my class could not figure out simple measurements like how many cups in in a gallon, how many Oz in a cup etc and yet they graduate

I graduated with honors (as if that means anything ) but instructors acted like it did over 10 yrs ago. Worked my way to executive sous chef but now out of industry due to having a family and wanting to see them instead of working 12 hrs day for low wages.

Save yourself if you want to be a cook, do your research first before paying for any culinary school

5 course meal for $15
(3 stars)

YOU ARE THE GUINEA PIG!!! AND... quality ingredients used (occassionally put to waste); depends whos doing the execution.

- Food, hit or miss
- Price, can't go wrong with 5 courses for $15
- Service, friendly but professional.... uhm ... (yup dot dot dot)
- Ambiance, very clean space

Decided to finally come and try Le Cordon Bleu Restaurant at the CCA. My expections, uncertain. Are you suppose to have high or low expections for students cooking food and you are the guinea pig? I can't complain, $15 for a meal that fills you!!!! Must make reservations and they only take x-amount of people a night. We were seated, greeted, and served. Level of professionalism is, well, don't expect it. I felt like I was talking to friends instead of staff. Good thing but kind of bad thing; this is a "restaurant". My friend mentioned that the service kind of sucks and the food was hit or miss. yup, it was a hit and miss for me. And service, i didnt care much because it's a student ran restaurant but we had to ask when to bring the next plate out for us, constantly asking for more water, and when asked to pack the left overs, to them it means "throw in garbage". And NO TIPPING; 15% is included to go towards some scholar fund. thanks for the experience!

HEFFER-STYLE STATUS.

(**SEE PICTURES***)

Meal #1) MUSHROOM AND CHEESE PIZZA - i think they forgot to mention the other ingrediants... bacon and asparagus. This was okay. I only had one piece and removed the bacon (sorry, can't eat pork or redmeat at this time).

Meal #2) "first plates"
LEVAIN FERTINE w/ ASPARAGUS, SHRIMP AND LOBSTER BISQUE - when we took our first bit the first words that came out of our mouth was "interesting". All we got from the waitress was that it was a 16yr old starter; kinda dont know what that means. So the "interesting" taste came from the 16 yr old starter? I wasn't that much of a fan of this plate.

Meal #3) another "first plates"
MIXED GREEN SALAD WITH PANCOTTA, MAYTAG BLUE, AND CANDID PECANS - and again, they failed to mention there are two crunchy slabs of bacon ontop. What if there were vegans in the joint, they'd be shocked. Wasn't a fan but did munch on it. Best part was the candid pecans

Meal #4) "main plate choice"
Had an option between Grilled Beef short ribs, roasted chipotle chicken, or fried fish & chips. My homegirl got the Grilled short ribs and liked it; no picture of it. Portion was just too damn small.

ROASTED CHIPOTLE CHICKEN - it came out looking pretty. two piece of chicken stacked nicely, garnished with some cilantro leaves, laying ontop of a bed of chipotle sauce. The taste was was okay/good for what it is. UNTIL i turned my chicken over and saw (see loaded pictures) and said, that doesnt look very appetizing. The chipotle sauce was good and had these little black balls split in half that tasted like pototoes. Also on the side was this chicpea"hash" that was like on a pie crushed masa; liked it but wish pie crused like masa texture wasn't so hard (it felt like of stale). My portion was pretty decent! Then i looked over and saw at a different table and wish ordered the fish & chips.

***PALATE REFRESHER** (suppose to be served before the main dish but we got ours after) served in a small cup was a purple-pink sorbet. with something else chopped on top and watercress sprouts. I am not a fan of the watercress sprouts but everything else was good.

Meal #5) "chef's choice dessert"
CAKE DUET - I was a fan of this, however my friend was not. Reminded me of pudding cake. The portion of this was huge, we barely put a dent in it.

Will I be back? The group of students tonight is their last class. I won't be back for a few weeks/months until the new wave of students have had some experience in the kitchen first. LOL. But it's a hit or miss; maybe next experience will be a hit.

Until the next review....

Reservations here was pretty bad. Tried using Opentable.com, but they weren't listed. Tried calling, but just got a recording that never called back confirming the reservation. Tried using the online chat feature on their website, but they did provide me with their answering service number where I was able to leave a message with the manager who actually called back to confirm.

Getting there, the address is 250 Rhode Island, but the door is on 16th street. The door itself is a heavy grade commercial door, but were too cheap to install hydraulics so opening the door is very difficult. Very welcoming when one can't even come in.

Finally sitting down, this place lacked the ambiance that their Polk St location had. Nothing to see but other dinners. The coffee and tea is self service. The menu was a simple 1 page sheet for everything. No more 3 course meal for a single price, each plate has it's own price.

The food itself is OK, the best was the flat bread included in the meal. With it's limited menu and not knowing what is going to be on the menu until getting there makes this place even more horrible. With the 9 items on the menu, it was like going to In & Out. My bacon wrapped meat loaf wasn't even wrapped when it came to the table, look like it fell apart but still brought it to me. A couple of us ordered the chicken dumpling, and one got a lot more soup than the other, talking about inconsistent.

I doubt I would ever return or recommend this place to anyone...

Hands down one of my favorite spots in the city. Delicious food, great service and good price!! Please open for takeout.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/01/MN4G1J8PRR.DTL&ao=2

Thank you Stacy Finz (SF Chronicle)

This article says it all.