Ventanas Restaurant & Bar

Came here for lunch during a biohacking conference at the nearby Convention Center. Nice peaceful area to sit in outside and the fish tacos I ordered that came with a huge avocado slice in each one were pretty awesome. Service was good and I was happy.

Wanted to try something different for lunch… so chose the Westin restaurant. Ventanas. I know the stories about «hotel» food… but its the Westin! Disappointing! Ordered the hanger steak salad (asian) expensive, pretty tasteless and I watched our fish tacos and fries sit under the heat lamp waiting on the salad 8 – 10 minutes I swear… fries we’re warm at best… good waiter so 2 stars… but would never go back.

The Hotel Restaurant! So most of these are bland… they have a small menu that caters to the majority and with this being a Westin (fairly ritzy business hotel) those tastes often don’t mesh well with mine.
I have been eating their breakfast which is very good. I am a fan of poached eggs. And sauces.
I stopped by for dinner on one day and ended up at the locale for happy hour. So inexpensive local brew with some wings (HOT HOT HOT) and a chicken quesadilla. Both were delicious and what what expected.
The main thing that gets the stars is the people. I received excellent service every time I go from any and all the staff. Very friendly and attentive. Good at reading if you are alone with a book or are in a talkative mood.

I try to stay away from restaurants in strip-​malls, hotels and places with neon signs endlessly blinking on the windows. But sometimes you are just too hangry to get to the quaint place 1.8 miles from the hotel. This rule serves me well on the road. There are only a handful of exceptions.
I thought I might have set the bar at a low level for Ventanas. But upon further reflection, I don’t think that is the case. This is a pretty decent hotel restaurant that strives to create good food and succeeds.
My brunch here was delicious and the ingredients were fresh. I ordered an omelette with cheese and avocado and mushrooms. There was a peppery salad with it that complemented the rich egg and cheese really well. Service was friendly and prompt and the setting is actually thoughtfully designed. You won’t feel as if a sales conference is going on in a fluorescent-​rich conference room adjacent to your table.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. Thanks for a good breakfast and for getting me to bed promptly after an all nighter at work. I’m looking forward to lunch here at the end of the week.

Not too bad for a hotel restaurant. Prices are high as expected at a hotel place, but the hotel did give me vouchers for skipping on some linen changes. The inside of the restaurant is well lit and the waitresses seems nice. They also have an amazing outdoor area that is worth checking out. Full bar and televisions to keep you occupied. Tables have a flask with olive oil. Overall nice place.

Service wasn’t bad but the food was overpriced and average.
I ordered the Salmon panini with the side salad, a bowl of mixed berries and orange juice and coffee. If the food was amazeballs, I wouldn’t complain. But my berries were not fresh, coffee was just the average, and my side salad was gross… it was bitter and all it was was greens and cherry tomatos… bleh.
That was a $ 30 dollar breakfast… for myself only. You ask why? Because they charge $ 15 bucks for a panini, $ 6 bucks for the bowl of fruit, and $ 5 each for a small cup of coffee (trust me, it wasn’t starbucks) and $ 5 for orange juice (who does that!!).
Luckily, it was a family breakfast so I still had a good time, but really? I’ve had cheaper hotel continental buffet breakfasts with mimosas. Overall, for three people we spent over $ 100 for breakfast.
If it wasn’t for the wedding the night before I would have definitely suggested going into downtown Pasadena and eating elsewhere.

The only reason this is getting two stars is because the service was pretty good. If it were on food alone, I’d be petitioning Unilocal to add a «negative star» category.
Let’s start with the «recommended» French Onion Soup. If your idea of a good soup is a bowl of supersaturated saltwater with some mushy chunks of what you hope are onions, topped with a chunk of brick (my friend assured me it was some sort of bread, although we both agreed it was baked around the type that the Great Pyramid of Giza was erected), then this is the place for you. If, on the other hand, you don’t think that choking back a jar of marmite with slime in it is a winning idea, skip the soup.
Fine. That’s just one course, right? Surely, they can’t fuck up a margherita flatbread, right? Right? Oh. I guess they can. When you are making any sort of crispy bread and putting mozzarella and tomatoes (and, apparently, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE) on it, one of the objectives is to keep it crispy. To do this, you need some sort of fat barrier between the watery tomatoes and the bread. Cheese! Cheese would be a good idea. Nope. That was on top of the tomatoes. So, since I stupidly tried to consume my soup first, by the time I got to it, it was a soggy plate of tomatoes, cheese, and some unidentifiable mush.
⁰⁄₂. Fine. I’ll order dessert. There has to be SOME course that makes me happy. Having not learned not to get recommendations from my waiter (who, to be fair, clearly was trying to do a good job), I went with the marscapone cheese cake instead of the white chocolate bread pudding. Wasn’t anything to write home about, but it wasn’t an utter disappointment, either. Just — meh.
My friend had the tempura shrimp. There was an ABSOLUTELY delicious sauce on, uh, one of them. The rest of them were completely dry. He was as thrilled with the soup as I was.
Total strike out. Waste of time and money.

For a hotel restaurant/​bar, Ventanas was a pleasant surprise. We arrived at the Westin Padadena on a Friday night. I had some time to kill before having to meet my dining companion, and, being terribly hungry and «thirsty,» I sauntered down to Ventanas’ bar around 7:45pm to entertain myself.
The bar area is rather makeshift. Nothing too impressive to look at, really. Only one employee was present, functioning as both waiter and bartender. He managed to do a good job, considering that the space was fairly busy.
The French martinis I indulged in were delicious. They were the perfect devices to take the edge off the day. I also splurged by having the Chicken Quesadilla. It was creatively served with spoons of guacamole, sour cream and salsa. I loved every morsel.
The following day, we returned to Ventanas for lunch. I decided upon the Turkey Burger. The menu is impressive because it’s easy to tell that they take great care in providing options that are healthy. The portion size of my burger was generous, and the meat was extremely flavorful. I decided to have it with a side of coleslaw, rather than a potato option. It was truly a memorable lunch that made me very happy.
Prices are a bit high, but that’s fairly common and should be expected in any hotel atmosphere. Service was fantastic and friendly, too. Overall, an impressive experience.

I have been coming to Ventanas for many years now, and the food, the prices and most of all the service its just perfect. Very elegant place and the courtyard speaks of Pasadena. I sincerely appreciate the staff, Diego and Urbano go the extra mile to make sure the experience is both pleasant and warm. Order the Beef salad. it will not disappoint you!

Dude. Really? This place is SO OVERPRICED. I would have rather walked a mile to get other food than eat here not once, but TWICE. We were staying at the hotel for a weekend and my mom wanted to eat in the hotel (mistake número uno).
Morning #1: We got pancakes, the salmon sandwich, the eggs benedict, and oatmeal (there are 4 of us, don’t worry…). First of all, this is basically everything on their breakfast menu, so if you’re hoping for other options, you won’t get much. The food was edible. The oatmeal tasted like oatmeal. The salmon sandwich was too salty, but as I said before, edible. The eggs were pretty good, not $ 14 worth. The pancakes were probably the best, but probably not that healthy.
Morning #2: Was feeling… tired…so I got eggs, sausage, toast. the works. It was greasy, made me feel sick, and again, loaded with salt. I can’t blame my last of excitement over the food entirely on the restaurant, but the fact that it is SO OVERPRICED (all caps) just makes me totally unsatisfied.
I would recommend venturing out of the hotel to get some decent food. The walk will be worth it.

The first time I ordered the $ 14 Chicken Panini with sweet potato fries, Ventanas Restaurant messed up my order. Nevertheless, the panini was pretty tasty and so were the fries. I can’t say it was spectacular but it sure did hit the spot, regardless of the obnoxious price.
The second time I ordered the Chicken Panini with sweet potato fries was a far better experience. I must say that for me the menu is soooo limited that I chose it again. Everything else did not look very appealing at all. What made the second experience better was that the waiter asked me if I liked the sandwich the day before. I told him that, even though it was good, they messed up the order. He went out of his way to make my second dining experience better. He made sure that the order wasn’t messed up this time. The way he did it was nice. It seemed he really cared and that he had pride in his job.
I like the décor here and in general this is a nice hotel.
There really is no reason to be here if you aren’t staying at the hotel or meeting up with someone who is as there aren’t very many parking options other than the expensive underground hotel lot.
Considering the high price of the food and the fact it was not spectacular I would normally give this place a 3 star rating, but the waiter made the difference here so they’ll get four stars out of me!

Seriously overpriced, but the food wasn’t bad.

I came here for breakfast this morning before I headed home. It is located in the Westin Pasadena and it is specializes in «Californian» food.
They are also open for breakfast which is everything from waffles, breakfast wraps and smoked salmon benedict.
I had the breakfast wrap minus the meat and it was very good but the mini belgium waffles my SO had was good and was multi grain.
Mind you this is a hotel (Westin Pasadena) so breakfast prices are pricey. They open at 6:00. This would be a great place for a business breakfast otherwise just head to one of the restaurants nearby BUT they are open at 6am.