La Madeleine Country French Cafe in Alexandria, VA

As per a DC resident's suggestion, I found myself across the Potomac River in Alexandria, VA. This city had a neighborhood known as Old Town which reminded me a bit of St. George Street in St. Augustine. It was somewhat historic and had all sorts of shops and restaurants on a 16 block stretch from the Metro station down to the river. Fake trolleys drove up and down the streets. Ghost tours were offered. All that typical tourist stuff that old cities like this have. While in Alexandria, I had dinner at a restaurant called La Madeleine Country French Cafe. This restaurant turned out to be a chain, set up very similar to a Panera. I wasn't a fan.

I ordered the sandwich/soup combination that the restaurant offered. For my soup, I had the cream of potato, topped with cheese and bacon. The soup was alright for what it was, but very typical of a creamy soup like this.

For my sandwich, I had the Croque Monsieur. This was basically a ham and cheese sandwich with a garlic cream sauce. If the ham and cheese had all been inside of the bread, I don't think I would have had issues here. Unfortunately, La Madeleine melted an excess of swiss cheese on top of the sandwich. This ended up being cheese overkill, with the abundance of goopy cheese taking precedence over all other flavors in the sandwich. It was too much, and I ended up leaving about half of my half sandwich. If there was less cheese inside of the sandwich, the cheese on top wouldn't have been too bad, but the combination of inside and outside cheese was the turning point for me. Pasta salad was served on the side, which I also didn't care for. It had a very strong tomato taste which I wasn't liking.

I don't think I'd return to a La Madeleine location again...