Bistro 39

I respect this restaurant. It stands proudly to represent fine French cuisine and has done so for the past year.
Unfortunately, most French food is pricey and so the food must be either extravagantly tasty, have excellent marketing, or be really affordable for the restaurant to excel. And standing next to places like the Boiling Crab and Tony Roma’s, the walls that encompass escargot, crepes, duck being to crumble over time.
And so this may be the last time I will enjoy a lamb shank or lava cake here because the owners mentioned they wanted to turn this place into a steak house in a few weeks. But they’re going spice it up with a French flair of course!
I will very likely return they next time I find out they have a band playing for they have excellent taste in music.

We were a party of 5… walked into the restaurant on a Friday night at 7PM just to find it empty.
Appetizer: Crab Cake and Shiitake Mushroom Bruschetta
Entrée: Atlantic Salmon, Tiger Prawns, NZ Rack of Lamb, Filet of Sole, and Chicken Fettucini
Dessert: Crème Brulee x 2
My salmon was a bit overcooked so it taste hard but otherwise, it is acceptable. My friends complimented on their dishes. And yes, order the crème brûlée… it is very creamy.
Lakers were playing that night so I asked the waiter to turn to that channel for me! :)
Service was okay. They came over a couple of time to refill our water. We sat there for a little over 3 hours and left right before the band started playing.
Overall experience is okay.
The meal came to a bit over $ 130 after the $ 50 gift certificate I got on
…overpriced IMO

I came here for lunch yesterday. It was pretty good. I met up a group of my friends. I had the house green salad and the french dip sandwich. Yummy. the house green salad with the house vinagrette was delicious. The vinagrette was very appropriate for the salad and was not overpowering. The french dip sandwich was excellent with the au jus sauce. The sandwich also came with delicious fries. All in all, it was a great lunch with good friends.

What a steak!
So we called the place on the day of our friends bday dinner party for a group of 10. All the restaurants we called could not accommodate our large party, except for Bistro 39, who also gave us a banquet room. (1^st Star — earned).
Once we got there, the servers and Cecil sat our large group promptly and got our first round of drink and orders in within 10 minutes. (2^nd Star — earned).
The meal was really good, my wagyu steak was delish and sauce was just right. (3^rd Star — earned). The beer special of the month was awesome, $ 2 dollar beers all night. (4^th Star — Earned).
The entire night, the manager /​owner constantly checked in on us and even kept us entertained with his stories, which definitely impressed everyone in the group that people were passionate about food.
So, you must be asking yourself how did Bistro 39 earn the last star? Well, the owner himself came back out at the end of the night and cut the cake himself. (5^th star — earned).
Our first experience with Bistro 39 was really good and I never give out 5 stars. Only issue I had was that a few more beers should be on the $ 2 dollar drink special.
P. S. try the crème brûlée… talk about rich creamy goodness.

This is a review from a birthday dinner and a chance to preview and help evaluate this location. This review is based on our visit as a group back in March 2010. This is just on my opinion on the food.
Seeing lobster bisque on the menu, I really wanted to try this soup. When I tasted the lobster bisque, it almost seemed like it had a fishy like taste to a tomato soup. I was hoping that there were small chunks or bits of lobster within the soup since this would seem like a rich and creamy dish to savor. I didn’t think there was enough cream to make this thick either.
We requested for mushroom bisque as we sent back the lobster bisque and tasted one of the mushroom bisque which came out earlier and seemed to have a rosemary taste. When I tasted mine, it tasted like how you would reconstitute cream of wheat in those packets but instead it was cream of mushroom. I would like to have tasted each of these soups with bits of mushroom or lobster in each of the soups.
The French onion soup seemed like it needed a little salt to flavor but I tend to like my dishes not so salty so this was perfect for me. Those around me actually wanted more salt in the soup but still good with the cheese in there. The Bistro 39 salad had an awesome presentation but I did not get the opportunity to taste this one. Those who had ordered it said it was really good. It looked really fresh and light.
When the dishes for the lamb shank and the rib eye came out, they both had the red win reduction sauce and tasted exactly the same. I’m not sure if this was intended but the sauce was sour as though the wine didn’t have a chance to have the alcohol evaporate and reduce. I had thought a reduction sauce would be sweet and compliments the meat on the dish. I prefer my lamb with that still gamey taste but don’t mind it if it doesn’t which I’ve only experienced that in a few restaurants. I did not start on this dish except for my first bite because of the sauce. I did taste the Chilean sea bass which seemed a little more of a fried fish and the center didn’t seem to be cooked all the way. The mango salsa complimented but the fish was more fried where I was looking for a pan seared sea bass. That is just my observation of this dish as my neighbor buts into this dish.
I did try the filet mignon that was ordered across from me and was served well done. The dish was ordered medium rare so another dish was fired up. It was also had been requested without the sauce. Seemed like the same red wine sauce was on this dish as well which had the same sourness to the sauce. I tasted that without the sauce and seemed like it was done in a rush where the pan was way too hot. I only tasted the charring on the outside and could not enjoy the taste of the meat inside even though it was cooked as ordered.
Crème Brule was ordered and it seemed really creamy whipped cream rather than a custard texture. I was expecting a really light and smooth texture which I would hope for trying to remember one I had before. The same taste was in the cheese cake where it was a little more firm. It did remind me of Philadelphia cream cheese being left out for the day. To me I didn’t think it was fresh and thick and cream like cheese cake usually is. I did like the cappuccino ice cream though that we sampled. The lava cake tasted good but I had thought it would have been really moist. It was like a pastry with filling, a Dolly Madison cup cake if you will but homemade.

We came here for a birthday dinner. My first impression was that the dining room was outdated, burgundy hues shouted dining rooms of my childhood where there was no energy, nothing that typifies a bistro, where the hustle and bustle prevails.
Our first introduction of the restaurant were their bread baskets, something which to me is the first indication of how much thought a restaurant puts into its first impression. Here, we were presented with a sliced baguette — perhaps 5 – 6 slices — 3 baskets placed strategically down the table of 16 people. Make a mental calculation and you immediately realize that this really wasn’t enough to go around. The bread wasn’t anything to shout about and in hindsight, we may not have even reached for it had some of us not been starving.
There was definitely a mis-​communication when orders were put in because things started to get a bit crazy after that. The first courses arrived and there wasn’t much of a flow to anything, so soon after we found ourselves reaching out and helping ourselves to each other’s food seeing some people got food, while others didn’t.
(I have to cut this short because I keep hitting over the 5000 word limit!)
Escargot — overcooked, very soft in texture for escargot. The garlic butter sauce was nice but required just a pinch more salt.
Lobster bisque –no hints of sherry and no real lobster/​umami taste except for a slight fishy aftertaste which lingered on the palate. Color was also too dark — a little more cream would’ve helped. I did not mind the fact that there weren’t bits of lobster in the actual soup, but one would think that lobster bisque would have bits of lobster swimming in it. Definitely stay away from this.
Mushroom soup — flavor was okay, the overwhelming taste of rosemary threw me off. A selection of field or wild mushrooms would have sufficed to hold its own but copious amounts of DRIED rosemary was dumped into this otherwise, good soup. Sacre bleu!!!
French onion soup — The broth to croûton/​cheese proportion was a little off — the soup/​onion portion should be ²⁄₃ to the ¹⁄₃ croûton/​cheese and as it stands, it was ⁵⁰⁄₅₀. Still, I enjoyed this immensely!
Bacon wrapped shrimp — very fresh shrimp, plump and cooked well. Bacon was a little undercooked with bits of fat unevenly rendered so some bits were grisly. Just a minute more in the pan would have rectified this easily.
Angus steak — Steak was of very good quality but the accompanying sauce was too buttery/​creamy in taste to a point where it was displeasing to the palate. The sauce here just took away from the meat when the meat should have been the star.
Salmon — very fishy and overcooked. The fish bordered on the dry side and maybe in this case, the sauce actually helped the fish because it helped the dryness. Ordinarily, again, the fish should have been the star and the sauce only the sidekick to the hero but overcooked fish never shines!
Chilean seabass — again overcooked and over fried. This is a delicate fish, it is hard to really screw up because of its oil content. It should be melt-​in-​the-​mouth and very tender. A light sear is all it needs, but it was almost the consistency of the fish in a fish taco because it was fried. The mango salsa, though very tasty on its own was not really the right acroutrement for the seabass!
Beef short rib — fall-​off-​the-​bone tender, unfortunately, the sauce killed the meat here again — it was cold when it arrived, on a cold plate. It did not have the shine of but instead, looked muddy and tasted overwhelmingly strong taste of rosemary again
Lamb shank — although the meat was tender and easily prodded off the bone, it tasted dry and the meat was not even warm when it reached our table. The same sauce for the short ribs was used as an accompaniment making the two dishes subpar when served side by side. Neither has its own identity and while rosemary works well with lamb, it really does not with beef.
I don’t even have room to add the desserts but what we had was pretty lackluster. Apart from the Fosselman’s ice cream, everything tasted very amateur and hardly of real restaurant quality.
For a far more detailed account of what transpired, please read Holly W’s review on Bistro 39. As for me, I honestly hope they find their way soon, otherwise, Bistro 39 will soon follow those before it into the ‘another bites the dust’ pile.

So after posting my review [which I have since streamlined below], I got an email from Cecil, one of the owners from Bistro 39 offering a full fledged apology for all wrong doing, which to me is really nice and all, but sort of «too little, too late.» The damage has already been done, $ 80 done the tube, the feeling like my guts want to spill all over the side of 710 Freeway already gone. It would’ve been nicer if he would have offered to refund my money at this point, but I guess a nice humanistic exchange of «yeah, we screwed up» is fine too.
However, Cecil’s email to me, though very apologetic really missed the point, and unfortunately, I had to point it out to him yet again and it is essentially this –
1) My friends agreed to hold off posting any Unilocal reviews or blogs for an extremely bad meal that they themselves had to pay for out of an agreement and courtesy to Bistro 39 simply because they felt bad.
2) Instead, Bistro 39 asked them to send that feedback directly to them, and in exchange it would be used to make changes to the food, in which my friends would be invited back, free of charge, to taste and experience the changes made.
3) However, when my friends emailed their feedback, Bistro 39 DID NOTHING, and didn’t even reply back to the email to say «thanks.»
4) Months went by, and my friends still hadn’t heard from Bistro 39, even after they emailed back to check up on the situation. After my friends had done the due diligence in trying to track down Bistro 39 through email, it was only then that they got a reply, and it was basically a «yeah, sorry, but we’re still working on it.»
I made it a point to remind Cecil of this chain of events, but based on his reply, it’s clear he STILL doesn’t understand points #3 and #4.
—
Thanks for responding. I’m sorry that our food made you sick on the ride home. I do not enjoy hearing that about any restaurant. Like I said earlier, we have implemented certain guidelines to avoid any more cross contamination on our behalf. Thank you for being honest and straight forward. For the record, my partner David did respond to Tim’s email and did let him know that we were still «work in progress» and would update him when we were ready to have you all back. I do acknowledge that I should have made more of an effort to reply, which is a mistake I will not make again. I do think that Unilocal should implement a «Group review» because with only 60+ reviews on Unilocal,these 3 – 4 reviews could be detrimental to any restaurant trying to survive in this economy. I believe Kevin had a decent review, maybe he could post his up there so we could maintain a small amount of dignity :)
humbly, Cecil
—
Yes, I feel bad that Bistro 39 feels bad. Yes, my friends shouldn’t have been so nice. Yes, I probably should have been more forceful in trying to get them to comp our meals while we were at the restaurant but honestly, I was feeling so sick, I just wanted to get the hell of out there.
Yes, even though Cecil comes off as being «nice», what he’s saying above is, let’s face it, a joke.
Yes, you should STILL avoid this place at all costs.

We decided to give this place a try on a Saturday night. The place was not busy at the time we walked (around 6pm) and soon filled up.
environment:
— the light was really bright for a «bistro»
— when the restaurant filled up, it was really loud, there were a few big tables chatting it up as if it’s at a regular Chinese restaurant
service:
— slow… really really unattentive and slow, there are plenty of waitresses/​waiter/​friends of the owner (??) walking around the restaurant, neither of them were dressed as if they work there, and all of them try to avoid eye contact whenever possible. As that said, water was never refilled until we flag them down.
— food came out really slowly too, one of the waitress told us that their chef was sick and apologized for the slowness. that’s reasonable enough for the food coming out slow, but that doesn’t explain their bad service.
— 3 tables walked out after having their first course, angry, unpaid. we were nice enough to stick to the end and pay the bill.
Food:
— I couldn’t remember much how the food taste, but the sauces for the dishes are decent and can get a 3 – 4 star, but most dishes were overcooked and the crêpe was cold and brittle
I’m surprised that this restaurant has been around for so long yet the quality of the service is so bad… at the end the waitress gave us a discount card for returning… hmm, we didn’t even take it.

Came here with a party of thirteen for a friend’s birthday dinner and the staff was pretty accommodating and very friendly; the owner came by our table a number of times and had many side conversations with some of us to see if everything was taken care of (maybe because he knew we were Elite Unilocalers). Water glasses were frequently refilled and orders were taken, but apparently they didn’t do such a good job since they had two servers take our orders and my boyfriend ended up being skipped — too bad for them because the $ 60 meal he wanted to get wasn’t ordered; so we agreed to share the Lamb Shank that I got since he didn’t want to go through the hassle of getting their attention since they pretty much ignored him.
After an hour, appetizers, soups, and salads were finally brought out; yes, you read right, an hour. If the restaurant was packed with people or if they were short staffed or something, I would understand, but the restaurant was close to being empty with no customer traffic whatsoever. So I wonder why it took so long for the starter dishes to come out? Maybe they had to go to a farm in Missouri to hand pick lettuce heads themselves to make a salad? In addition, the soups were at room temperature, actually more close to cold, um, yum? Not so much.
Then an hour later, food was finally being brought out, yes, you read right again, it took another hour. I guess I would understand if they were trying to wait for everyone’s food to be prepared so it can be brought out at the same time, but that wasn’t the case; not everyone received their entrée, maybe two or three of us did and then another 15 – 20 minutes later, another dish would come out. The funny part is that once it was brought out, all the dishes were brought back.
A few of the reasons why food was taken back:
–Steak was raw, yes raw (not rare), when «well done» was ordered
–Pasta was undercooked
–Meat was fully cooked when «medium rare» was ordered
–Soups were cold
–and yes… the list goes on…
And on top of that, here I was still waiting for my Lamb Shank that I still didn’t get; at this point everyone was pretty much done eating and I was still waiting. So I went ahead and told the manager to just cancel my order but he came back out saying it’ll come out soon — but first they have to put in my order because somehow it got lost in the kitchen, well I didn’t feel like waiting for another ten hours so I politely said, «No thanks».
Luckily I nibbled on everyone’s food throughout the entire night so I wasn’t starving by then (which wouldn’t have been cute at all). I know I didn’t get my own entrée but I can still say that everything I tried did not leave a good taste in my mouth. The Beef Short Ribs and Braised Lamb Shank were in this mud like sauce that tasted like puke, the Lobster Bisque was more like a tomato soup with no lobster chunks visible whatsoever, the sauce that was topped on the Black Pepper Filet Mignon was pure «gross» where we had to ask for A1 Steak Sauce to get rid of that flavor, the Cheesecake tasted like the one from Food 4 Less, but a better deal at the market since the price of one slice here is equivalent to a whole cheesecake there. Definitely not a good dining experience — sad, but true.

We have eaten at Charlies Trio a number of times and decided to give Bistro 39, which is right next door, a try. A try is what I will call it.
Service: The service was slow, and it doesn’t seem like they have gotten it together when the restaurant opened. I see customers sitting around waiting for their food with no utensils nor water served. The waitress doesn’t seem to know the ingredients of the food they serve.
Food: I ordered a Tiger shrimp pasta and it finally came out after waiting for a loooooooooooong time. I expected more than 3 dingy, medium-​sized shrimp in my pasta dish. The cream sauce was a bit too heavy and too cheesy.
Unfortunately, this place is nothing like any french food I had my mind set on. While the staffs were nice, the food and slow service couldn’t make up for it.

This place was just okay to me. The service and food really didn’t make up for their high price, unattentiveness, and ignorance??? Can I call it that? I overheard another table ask the waitress what foie gras was and she had no clue. I might just be a foodie snob but… where has that girl been eating??? Only at burger joints??? But I guess, I can’t just blame her, management should’ve schooled her in the restaurant’s own menu items. Other than that, the waitresses were sweet girls.
Their menu is in dire need of descriptions. Maybe it’d be okay if it was a name of a dish in another language but what the heck is a «Bistro 39 Salad»? They need to sell their products by including mouth watering descriptions, cuz the wait staff really aren’t doing it. If they need someone to write mouth watering descriptions, I can volunteer myself =D Just… provide complimentary food so that I can be accurate ;P
Onto the food!!!
–Escargot: There wasn’t much taste to it. I’m used to my escargot being a little saltier. The butter garlic «sauce» was amazing though. It was SO bad of me to soak the bread in it but… it was sooooo good =d
–Grilled Scallops: The scallops were tiny, but cooked well. The sauce for it was AMAZING!!! Again, I was found asking for another basket of bread so I could soak up the sauce =d
–Bistro 39 Salad: They had a grilled pear half as well as julienned strips of the brown asian pears. The grilled pear had previously been soaked in sugar water which made it sweeter and softer than usual but still firmer than canned pears. There were also a very good amount of candied pecans. The dressing lacked though. I couldn’t taste much of anything except for the oil.
–Ribeye with red wine reduction: This came without the red wine reduction. That made me sad. The plate came with a cold mushroom risotto, sliced grilled squash and baby carrots. Though the risotto was cold, it was the first risotto I actually liked. When I finally got the red wine reduction, the sauce was amazing! This chef really knows his sauces. The cut of beef was a bit chewy. I’m actually surprised that the owner actually told me that he had pitched for a better cut of steak and that I shouldn’t need the sauce when I told him my steak didn’t come with a sauce… I’ve had WAY better. The char was excellant but it was NOTHING without the sauce (on the side).
–Rack of Lamb: This was overcooked, had a bad crust that tasted like flour. In the end, I can make better… A LOT better.
–Rice: We told the waitress that our risotto was cold and she replaced it with a cup of their rice. It was so decadent =d Did they mix in butter? Cooked it with chicken stock? Well, whatever they did… I want more =d
Would I come here again? Yes, the owner gave me a 15% off card and a $ 5 off card. Haha… I guess he did realize that the food took FOREVER and it wasn’t all that great. He blamed Boiling Crab’s grand opening next door and a missing chef. Said they got a lot of foot traffic that day… but we’ll see…

Cecil, the proprietor of Bistro 39 understands what it takes to properly serve customers. We had a party of 19 and from the time we walked in to the last good bye, Cecil made us feel welcome. Not only did he recommend a wine that perfectly complemented our meal, his choice of courses for our dinner was exquisite. Each dish prepared our palate for the next We started with 2 appetizers — Shitake Mushroom Bruschetta and Escargot Bourgogne. Following the appetizers, we had a choice of French Onion soup, Cream of Broccoli soup or salad. My choice was the French Onion soup — the most outstanding dish of the evening, IMO. The main entrée was prime rib complemented by a side of chicken fettuccine. Dessert choices were: Ice Cream (for the kids), Crème Brulee (my choice), Lava Cake or Cheese Cake.
Due to our party size we had a room to ourselves but we were still able to enjoy the background music of the live jazz band playing in the main dining room.
Next time? I think I’ll try their lunch menu.

Under New Ownership/​Management… I don’t know when this happened, but I was curious but I had been curious about the restaurant for a while, so a friend and I tried it out last night.
There was one couple seated when we arrived, and another two couples were seated after our party. The staff was friendly and we were seated immediately.
We ordered escargot and two prix fixe dinners. I had the seared scallops, the Bistro 39 salad, New Zealand baby rack of lamb (3), and crème brûlée. My friend ordered bacon wrapped tiger shrimp, Bristro 39 salad, Wagyu Black Pepper Filet Mignon, cheesecake.
The escargot and salads were quite tasty, and the meal had a good presentation overall.
The scallops seemed a little under-​seasoned, but my friend seemed to enjoy the tiger shrimp.
The main courses came out as ordered, a rare lamb and medium-​rare filet. I thought that my lamb was nice, but my friend found the filet mignon to be decidedly bland. I had a taste and found it amazingly tender, even beyond that of true Kobe beef, but wondered about an odd graininess I encountered.
I admit that I’m not a filet mignon expert because my tastes run in the exact opposite direction; however, I suspect that both issues arise from the use of a meat tenderizer to insure the steak’s texture.
The accompanying sauces were fair and less than. I felt that the one used for the lamb was a little light and reminded me of a thin gravy thickened with cornstarch. My friend thought that the pepper sauce tasted odd, and when I tasted it, I thought the problem was due to the fact that the sauce was still raw and tasted of uncooked alcohol.
However, the piped mashed potatoes were definitely problematic. They had the slightly translucent appearance and texture of mashed potatoes made from instant flakes and water, but they also had the lumps of made-​from-​scratch. I’m not sure I want to know how they did it.
I thought that the décor was nice and that the service was respectable, but the food had some obvious technical problems. With some adjustments, it could be a really good neighborhood place at which to dine.

Music can be called a universal language, it can be relaxing, fun, and it can be free! My Unilocal buddy Antho called me last Saturday about a friend of his playing in a band at Bistro 39 in Alhambra, so I decided to go check it out. When we arrived, the band, known as BOLO313, was already playing and had people bobbing their heads. Before I knew it, my head started bobbing and I almost started doing the «bump» with the waitress. This nice waitress led us to a table directly in front of the band, as if we were VIP.
I had already eaten before coming to this restaurant, so I decided to order a bowl of clam chowder soup, which was the special of the night for an attractive price of only $ 6.00. Antho ordered the French onion soup. Our soups were delivered rather quickly and served really hot. However, my soup was returned back to the kitchen, as it didn’t have much consistency and didn’t deliver much flavor. The nice waitress was very understanding and assured me the soup will be much better. When it was returned it was a little thicker, but it wasn’t much better in flavor. Antho was satisfied with his soup. For only $ 6.00, I won’t complain too much, nor will I get the clam chowder here again, but may opt for another soup. The clam chowder was moved to the right, as my head moved back and forth to the rhythm of the music.
The service was very friendly at Bistro 39, almost as if this was a family gathering. Diners ate, socialized, and danced in front of the band. People sat at the bar and watched the game and, periodically, tuned into the band. We were streaming live online too. By the way, BOLO313 plays everything from Funk to Rock. This was an enjoyable evening at Bistro 39.

A search for creperies in the San Gabriel Valley pulled up Valerie’s Crepes at the mall (which I loved but appears to be closed?) and Bistro 39. Wondering what French food in Alhambra (?!) would taste like, a friend and I decided to give it a try.
We were immediately struck by how empty the restaurant was. Half-​way into the meal, we were still the only party, which wasn’t a problem… except that the staff could hear our whole conversation. Awkwarrrd. I know the economy’s bad, but it was peak dinner hours on a Friday night. Where was everyone?
So since we were the only customers for a good half-​hour, service was friendly and attentive if just a little slow. It took about 15 minutes for two pieces of bread to come out, which were sadly quite flavorless, even for bread.
We shared the crab cake appetizer, Chicken and Mushroom crêpe, and Lobster Seafood Crêpe. The crab cakes were good – meaty but light, not overly-​dense and filling. The lightly breaded surface had a nice crunch, and the flavor was even better with a little bit of added acid from the lemons.
The crepes were big and filling but unfortunately a bit disappointing. They weren’t exactly bland but were one-​note in flavor. We both preferred the Chicken and Mushroom crêpe due to the strange toughness and chewiness of the squid in the seafood crêpe.
Each dish came with a small salad of greens, topped with shredded carrots and lightly drizzled in some sort of oil. And it tasted just like that – oily greens.
Overall, Bistro 39 was a nice and quiet place to eat, but the food just wasn’t worth the price.

I was part of Sohee P’s party of 10 and agree with everything she said.
I liked the prix fix menu options and they were a really good bargain at $ 21.99, $ 29.99 or $ 34.99 for soup or salad, main and dessert. I went with the duck which fell in the $ 29.99 category. The salad was okay — nothing to rave about and the dressing was a bit on the bland side. My duck 2 ways — breast and leg — was also under seasoned and a little tough even though it was cooked medium rare. I think on the side there were some green beans wrapped in prosciutto, a boiled tomato and these little potato puffs which were dry and (surprise!) bland. My tarte tartin was soooo sweet that I could only manage a bite.
I feel bad writing a negative review for what is clearly a small, family run restaurant that appears to be hurting — judging by the only 3 parties that arrived during our 2 hour+ long dinner. I think they need to work on their food, or maybe rethink the concept and make it more casual for the neighborhood.

This place is exactly what I needed when I can’t get myself to drive to Eagle Rock. I was surprised at how few patrons they had because the food is great.
We ate foi gras (imported from France, pricey but good), onion soup, salad, and the chicken crepes.
The owner is personable.
I hope this place doesn’t shut down due to lack of customers.

WE were really impressed by Bistro 39. There are many restaurants on this stretch of Main in Alhambra, and we’ve tried practically all of them. How did we miss Bistro 39?
We went on a Saturday, kind of early-6:30 and there were only 2 tables filled. Which surprised me and made me go «hmmmm.» But by the time we left it was packed and we understood why.
Service was very attentive… food was excellent. We shared the onion gratin soup which was perfectly done, very delicious. My hubby had the steak au poive and I had the grilled shrimp. Both were done very well. His steak was cooked perfectly. They have a limited but nice wine list with lots of choices from SB.
The only downside is it’s really bright in the restaurant and the music is a little loud. Otherwise, a lovely little gem.

This place was a great find! I work in Rosemead and am always looking for an impressive place to go for lunch and this place knocked my socks off. The menu is awesome and so diverse. Great French cuisne and dishes inspired by other countries, too.
My only warning, stay away from the cheese platter. The selection is something you could pick up at Albertson’s. But everything else was great, including the stellar service!

This place deserves more than 5 stars!
Excellent food and service. Roy and Manuela are great co-​owners who make you feel more than welcomed when dining in their restaurant. The waitress, Erica is also the best.
Want to try something different to drink with your meal? Ask Roy and he will pick out something for you from the big beer and wine selection.
The delicious French cuisine is Manuela’s expertise.
All the dishes are very fresh and delicious.
On a recent visit, my friend ordered «Le Sandwiche Californien» which comes with a side of fries. The waitress informed us they had run out of ketchup. Five minutes later she returns with some ketchup telling us the owner had made some. I have never experienced a restaurant going out of their way like that before.