Uh Lalá

Yet another stop for us during Restaurant Week. This place was listed as something different on Unilocal and from the looks of the restaurant it seems like it may have been rebranded recently. The restaurant itself kind of splits the line between looking like a really fancy place and looking like a place that wants to be a really fancy place but doesn’t quite get there. For example, table settings, manners of the wait staff, and internal decorations looked nice, but the outside looks a little run down and they were playing Nicki Minaj on the radio.
Aside from looks, the food provided on the Restaurant Week menu did give us enough evidence to believe that it can qualify as the fancy restaurant it wants to be. We looked through the standard menu and noticed that the prices are definitely in the upper range, but the food we sampled was on par with those prices. There is a wide variety of mostly French food and the bacalhau and empadas that we sampled were flavorful and of high quality. The banana desert we had wasn’t the best, but at least it was presented well.
Overall, if this place was in fact rebranded recently, it seems to be headed in the right direction, it just has a little work to do still.

We went here for restaurant week. It was listed as Uh lalá which I could not find under a simple Internet search nor a map app. Only the old restaurant name, la Cigale appears, which it’s apparently taken over. It is difficult to find since it doesn’t really have a sign outside, except for the name in small black print on a dark blue awning, it’s easy to miss.
The place looks refitted or revamped. Maybe the previous restaurant wasn’t doing well and they rebranded it. In any case, it was a nice spot, all indoors but looks out to the street. The place was slow on Monday night, much like many restaurants that remain open. But the staff was prompt and the service was good.
I had the frango or chicken empanadas. They were soft, buttery, flaky with a creamy sauce in the middle. It was like a tiny chicken pot pie and was delicious. It was well made and the stand out item for me. The empanadas came on a plate as a unit of 4 for an appetizer. They had several other bolinhos and other types of appetizers with a variety of flavors.
For the restaurant week special, it’s started with a gazpacho which was a cool spicy tomato soup with a kick to it with a sprinkle of Tabasco hot sauce. The main dish, bacalhau (grilled fish) with scalloped potatoes was crispy and baked well. The sobremesa was a banana surprise which was a layer cake, banana and crème. It was light and sweet.
I’d like to see this restaurant do well. It seems like it has good potential.