Technique Restaurant

Great service! My glass of water was never empty. I had 3 course meal; crab cake, pan seared salmon and the cheesecake. All were very delicious specially the salmon. The skin was extra crispy!

I just had the roasted garlic turkey sandwich. Possibly the worst sandwich I had this year :)

Everyone who works in this restaurant are senior students in the Le Cordon Bleu school, this was actually a class. They led by a chef. The prix fixe menu was a real bargain. The food was great, very well prepared and very well presented. The service was excellent.
Make sure to stop by their bakery counter for some pastries to go, again, great taste, very reasonably priced.

Food is delicious. The service is up to par. Drinks are ok. Price is decent. The ambiance and décor is classy and tastefully done. The students do a good job of keeping the place running.
Be careful with street parking.

Juicy $ 25 prefix meals
This is a school technically that serve gourmet meals. The servers and chefs are all students and they are all motivated and dedicated to their restaurant. There’s no tip needed in this restaurant so the students put their full effort and smiles to learn for their future endeavors.
The food always changes every quarter or season but when we went the menu was delicious. You’re able to get chicken, salmon, steak, lamb, or fried chicken. For appetizers, they offer mussels, crab cakes, kale salad, and Caesar salad. Desserts are chocolate bomb mousse, cake of the day, chocolate molten cake, or bread pudding.
Now on to my favorite dishes: the baked chicken is cooked to perfection, with the skin on it has the juicy flavor richness. The crab cakes are to die for, they are full of crab meat and melts in your mouth, the chocolate molten soufflé cake with ice cream is delish. All the items on the menu are so good. You won’t be disappointed and be in shock that students cooked them.
Be careful with the parking, you will get a ticket if you go over an hour and it’s double the price of ur prefix meal. You can park at the parking structure nearby. Besides the parking being difficult, Definitely recommend this place!

Selections are very very limited in their display case. Desserts don’t pop like they did a year ago. Breakfast items are sometimes leftover from previous day.

First time there for lunch, food was good but didn’t like the fast food style ordering and setting, just not a good paring with the food they put out. Will try dinner next time.
Gave 4 star for food but 3 for atmosphere.

This review is a long time coming, as I’ve had lunch here several times in the past. Things have changed since I’ve last been here, as reservations are no longer required for lunch, and the lunch crowd is mostly students of the Cordon Bleu school in the same building and across the street. For lunch, you order at a counter and they give you a number. I chose the Prix Fixe 3-​item dish, just to see what it was like. Starting off with a combination beet and greens salad, it was perfectly seasoned and tasty (Grade — A). Next, the Salmon, with creamy mashed potatoes, with bacon pieces and endive. A tad too salty, and the mashed potatoes were cold (Grade B). Lastly, the Apple Cobbler for dessert, which was the best part of the meal (Grade A+). Now you don’t actually grade the students, but you are given a survey at the end. I felt the restaurant had a better menu a few years ago, and wish they would go back to that. They also don’t offer their house bread, which was the best I’ve ever had. I wish things were not changed, but many restaurants need to change, due to economic reasons, and so these things are expected in any industry in flux.

I’ve eaten at Technique 3 times so far and I always leave feeling impressed. Sure, some dishes are better than others, but they especially get me with the desserts! Man oh man. are they tasty or what! It’s a beautiful concoction of ingredients that I’ve never imagined would pair up before, but they do and it’s wonderful! I’ve yet to dine at another restaurant that makes me feel this way about desserts.
The service is super efficient and friendly and you dine in a very simplistic setting. They usually start you off with a creative and equally delicious complimentary hors d’œuvre. Make sure to make a reservation via open table! It seems like they almost never take walk ins. I’m definitely loving Technique and can’t wait to be back!

My wife went to have lunch with me at work one day and we decided to have lunch here. I’ve heard about it and my wife’s cousin actually went to school here and is now a chef in New York so we decided to give it a shot. Parking is limited so you might have to park on the street. You walk in and it’s good good ordered the way fast food is intended. The menu is written on chalk board and a paper hand out for you to look over what they have for that day. We walked up and ordered. We shared the wedge salad that was very fresh and flavorful. The salad had figs, bacon and blue cheese it was good. My wife ordered the flat bread of the day. It was really good and crust was good and just the right crunch. The best part of the flat bread is when you would take a bite the cheese would stretch, that’s always a good thing in my book. I had the tech burger ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ that was sirloin chuck and ground bacon. Amazing burger! It also came with fries. Meat cooked perfectly and you could actually taste the chuck and bacon. You know we also needed desert. We had there white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. Soft and delicious. We would definitely come back to eat here, we are going to try and come for dinner.

Come support the new great chefs of the U.S.A…and they’re in Cali too not just NYC! Technique is the restaurant arm of the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Pasadena. With roots to France (… Mme Julia Child took classes here), I’m super glad this school is in Pass. Food is prepared by teachers/​students and students are servers. While dinner service is only from 6−8p, we tried to get in as early as possible to have time sit relax and eat. The minute you walk in you can tell it’s a cooking school: students are assembling menus, watching teachers and chefs cook… I think it’s a great atmosphere and it’s always a good thing to support budding chefs.
Verdict? Very good experience, definitely good restaurant quality food. Service is not your typical French restaurant as staff are students learning different aspects of running the business. Prices were very fair.
We had the following really delicious dishes shared for 2:
a) Moules Frites: Very nice dish, the fries were perfect, moules are fresh, the broth deliciously savory. I think the broth could have been warmer but overall a very a good dish. $ 8
b) Burrata with greens, asparagus, prosciutto and kumquats: very nice, light, the burrata tasted like what clouds would be if they are edible :) $ 7
c) Beets Salad: very nice and delectable, like the large chunks of golden and red beet, well made. $ 7
d) Cheeses Plate: 4 kinds of cheese, honeycomb, spicy onion jam, black berries, raspberries, marcona almonds, crusty bread. Very good. $ 7
3) Cowboy ribeye, medium rare with creamed spinach, french onions, purple potatoes and a side of BBQ sauce. The barbeque sauce was not needed because the steak was delicious on its own, cooked medium rare, with creamed spinach (not too creamy like most joints and you could tasted the spinach). The French onions were perfect however and added that expected crunch to a bite of steak. For $ 20, I’d come here again. This is a well made plate. Again the plate should have been warmer/​hot not lukewarm. Didn’t have room for a proper dessert but will come back.
All these dishes I’d come back again and order. Great price for dinner under $ 75 for everything with red wine.
Service was good to OK: they are students and will not be waiters. They tried their best however, no mishaps.
Visits: 2
Tip: Come as early as possible as dinner service ends at 8pm. The coolest thing: 15% service charge automatically added to the bill as a donation to the school system to support its students.

Food Ordered: special of the day — special fries
food: special fries were pretty much french fries topped with beef fajita, cheese & pico de gallo. huge to go portion. Lots of flavor.
misc: they have a staple menu that stays the same and specials of the day that are different every time I go. Bake cases usually have a few varieties of cookies, croissants, salads and sandwiches. Great grab and go selection if you’re in a hurry.

As someone who works in education, I totally understand that this place is a soft opening since students are practicing their craft. However, when you have to send back short rib because it is unbearably salty, I just don’t think there is much to say. The fried calamari and the grapes/​celery leaves were also rather confusing mixed together. On the other hand, my scallops were nicely prepared.
Also, I didn’t think the price for dinner entrees were that much better than a restaurant. My three scallops were still $ 16, and it was a tiny portion. They didn’t have any specials, at least not the Wednesday night we were there.
Service was exceptional when around. At one point I found myself wondering why all the students kept congregating by the counter and chat.
I think come prepared for a hit or miss.

Went here for lunch on a Tuesday just to try out the culinary institute to see what the students were cooking since I see them preparing all the time when I walk by. Well, it was just meh for lunch and I doubt I will come back. Not sure if it is the same each lunch hour, but we had to order from the café registers and then sit and wait for our food. They seemed pretty disorganized more than I expected even accounting for this being a learning experience. We didn’t get our drinks when we ordered — they said they would be delivered but never were. We went back to stand in café line just to get our cups to fill. I could excuse all that but the real problem was the food wasn’t great. We got the country chicken with biscuits and gravy — and the chicken breading was super salty and not great. The biscuit didn’t taste like a biscuit — more like doughy bread. We had the heirloom beer salad as well, and that was pretty good tasting except some of the beet skins remained on the beets. The desserts looked good but we didn’t try any.

I wish they still had the set menu with the prefix. That seemed to be the better menu. Now that it had changed I was not quite happy with the food?
Yes they are students and I have had better here, but unfortunetly with the recent menu change the food has changed as well.

Definitely expected a lot more since I heard some good things about the place, but fell a bit short from my expectations.
The kimchi fried rice was decently tasty, but the pork and the ribs were a but tasteless and bland. The bbq pizza was a bit dry, but it was pretty good otherwise.
Overall, the service was alright. The presentation of the food was good as it made the food seem delicious, but the taste and cooking could use a little improvement.

I have eaten at Technique on several occasions since 2012 and each time it feels like I am eating a different restaurant. This is most likely because the menu changes often and I am guessing the team of student chefs change pretty often as well. Occasionally I will order a dish that looks beautiful but tastes pretty lackluster or it will be the complete opposite where the presentation looks awful but the food tastes great. For the most part though the food looks as good as it tastes.
A couple of years ago, there was a lunch prix fixe (3 courses for $ 13) and a dinner prix fixe (3 courses for something like $ 16 or $ 18).Well times are a changin’ and prices have increased. Even though prices are higher now and there is no longer a lunch prix fixe, there are still plenty of affordable options on the menu. At dinner, there is a «Chop House for Two» option which offers a pretty good sized sized protein and your choice two sides. I also noticed they have a deli case with pre-​made salads and sandwiches but I haven’t tried any of those items.
PROS:
The ingredients are very fresh and the complimentary breads they serve are usually pretty good.
Appetizers are pretty solid (I recommend the lyonnaise which was like a salad with bacon and soft boiled egg).
The 15% service charge benefits the scholarship fund.
CONS:
The desserts tend to be disappointing. I got a really firm rose panna cotta and my cousin got a rock hard pain perdu. Stick with the ice cream/​gelatos.
Parking can be tricky because the nearby streets have a one hour limit. Your meal may take slightly over an hour.
Tips:
Make a reservation on
If you do make plans to go, the restaurant is closed on: June 27, June 30, July 1 – 4, August 14 – 15, September 1 and 26, November 6, 7, 27, 28 and December 19-​January 5.

If you remember the fact that this is basically a test kitchen for the students at the Cordon Bleu then you won’t be disappointed by the quality of the food. It isn’t the best and there are definitely some hits and misses, but this is a great place to try some dishes and support the students.
They have an excellent $ 25, 3-​course prix fixe option that allows you to choose a starter, entrée and dessert. It is a good amount of food regardless of what your selections are.
The ambiance is beautiful, they have fantastic high ceilings and simple clean décor that offers you a great view of the massive kitchen.
My husband and I tried 4 starters, two entrees and one dessert. Most of the dishes were too salty for me which was disappointing but I did enjoy the presentation and the service. There are a lot of great concepts going on, but the execution needs more finesse (this probably has more to do with the fact that we were there on the first day of their new menu).
I would definitely give them another shot (maybe later in the semester)
Parking is a bit of a pain since there only seems to be street parking, but Pasadena is a great place to walk around so it’s not that terrible.

My friends and I came here back in November when they happened to be filming Parks and Rec near the City Hall.
It’s kind of weird when you first enter since I see no way that the «servers» would be able to see you past that huge wall they set up to section off the dining room from the greeting station. Otherwise, our student server was very professional (even with her little cat ears headband!) and made sure we were all ok.
Food took a while to come out, but they did have a huge party here. I would not recommend booking a birthday party here since everything is supposed to arrive at once for the party or not long after, so you’re in for a long period of wait. However, if you ordered some wine, it makes the wait a bit shorter.
We split our dishes 4 ways, which again I would not recommend since portions are quite small and really meant to be shared between 2 people, not 4. But we did get to try some good things.
Crab Cake: This was pretty good but small.
Escargot with Potato Chip: I am not sure escargot should even be deshelled for you EVER, as if it is cooked not in the shell, the juices are not retained. This was a bit dry for us.
Surf and Turf: My scallops were seared perfectly but had a bit of sand. The oxtail ragu and red wine risotto was ABSOLUTELY DIVINE. It was very rich and perfectly cooked as well.
Beef Bourguignon: This was ok and portions were quite insubstantial if shared too much. Flavor was good but not really a traditional Bourguignon flavor.
Crème Brulee Bacon Chips: This was ok and the bacon chips were pretty intense. A really heavy dessert with more heavy flavors piled on top.
Corn Dessert: Extremely sweet, but the corn ice cream itself is pretty damn good. It tastes like a buttered popcorn Jelly Belly but in cold ice cream form (which is better).
The other dishes we had were mediocre and really not that memorable. We all agreed this was ok, a 3.5 stars at best. They did some things correctly but other things needed improvement (keep in mind, this restaurant is for learning purposes).
For $ 25, this is pretty good to taste what the students are cooking up if you’re going in with an open mind.

$ 25 for a 3 course meal.
Not bad for the price but the food was just okay. My entrée was probably not worth eating, I literally downed 2 cups of water because the sauce was SOOOOO salty. I felt bad about saying anything because i understood people making my food were newbies. Dessert also had a very weird taste, we had the Crème brûlée and it was all ehh.
good one time experience!