liliana's restaurant

trying hard . . .. the owner is trying hard to build up a steady business. the food is simply okay, with some hits like the crab cakes and some misses like the jambalaya. the service we experience was pretty bad with one of our party actually having to chase down our waitress several times. the crowd was thinner than usual on this saturday night, so our waitress should have been on top of things. she appeared to be more interested in talking to her co-workers and folding napkins than in attending to our needs. we were also seated at a table with a lovely view of the dirty dishes. i could see being seated there if the place was busy, but not when there were so many tables available. we did enjoy the bar staff and the jazz. i hope the owner makes some changes to the service area as the food is okay and different for the madison area. we will comebackwhen we're in the mood for this type of food, but it will not be a favorite until the service is improved.

steer clear of shellfish. we had 2 good dinners here which led us to come in for our anniversary and it was a disaster. my wife was half way through her dinner and found an unopened mussel. after telling the waitress she camebackfrom the chef and told us that the chef said it happens all the time and its fine and safe to eat. no thank you. we sent it away.
i have 2 problems with this: first there were 3-4 mussels in the dish. it should be easy to make sure they were all cooked. second, i'm really not convinced that it is safe to eat unopened mussels. the fda says no and as a person with a phd in chemistry i agree.
just to top off our bad experience they charged us for a bottle of wine we didn't order.
bottom line: certain things are good here, service has been either really good or really bad, and i would never eat any shellfish from a place that thinks serving closed mussels is ok.

can't decide. had a couple of lunches that were nothing special.
my bad, i expected cajun or basic n'awlins.

because i respect their philosophy re local ingredients, wentbackfor a dinner that was very good. but, remember bouillabaise in madison won't trigger memories of france.

good experience. unlike the other two reviewers i had a good experience. the restaurant seemed fairly new (i went there the first week of august) so it is quite possible they have been working out the kinks. i ordered the creole trio, my father a noodle dish with chicken, andouille, shrimp and vegetables, and my mother a noodle dish with a smoked pork shoulder. all the food was great and had generous portions of meat/ingredients (even the noodle dishes). i've been to new orleans quite a bit (used to live in texas so it was only a 5 hour drive) and this place broughtbacklots of good memories.

their cornbread/biscuits are also quite good and there doesn't seem to be much of a need to order an appetizer making it a fairly reasonably priced place.