We should have known from the get-go that this was going to be an adventure. Since we haven’t been around the part of town in which this new eatery is located, we trusted in our handy-dandy iPhone to get us there…and ended up in middle of a field off Wallace Lake road. Unless you live in extreme south Shreveport, we can say with confidence that Windrush isn’t a place you will be popping into…you have to really want to go.
When we arrived at Windrush, we were, in a word, confused. The decor and prices are upscale, but the menu is downright bizarre. A good chunk of the menu consists of burgers, salads, cheesesticks and wings, but smushed among this fare are a couple of steaks, calamari, a fish and a pasta. From the get-go, N felt the menu had split personality disorder. S agreed.
So, aside from the head-scratcher of a menu, what about this experience could have gone so horribly awry, that we were compelled to start a food blog? Well, it all started with a game of musical tables….
When we arrived at Windrush, the restaurant was only about 1/3 of the way full, and we had empty tables on either side of ours. Right about the time we got our wine, an employee rushes over and says breathlessly, “Can we move your table?” We were confused but agreed, and stood up as he dragged our table over about six feet, and rushed off. We actually had to pick up our chairs and carry them to our table. He and others quickly set up a few more tables, but the restaurant remained only mildly busy. Already, S was annoyed. Moving a customer in the middle of their meal is one thing, but making them carry their chairs is…tacky.
Determined to move forward from this we ordered a cheese board, which was described as “variety of artisan cheeses served with seasonal fruits, crackers & crostini.”
Here in Shreveport, if you are going to put out a cheese board in a restaurant, then you dang sure better deliver. We diners want to see unique, quality, and wait for it, actual ARTISAN cheese. We do not want the shrink-wrapped havarti from Wally World. And at Windrush, that is unfortunately what we got. Our cheese was not unique, not artisan, and led to our next dining disaster: S took a bite of one selection, only to pull a piece of the plastic wrapper out of her mouth that was still stuck to the bottom of the cheese. At this point, she went from annoyed to pissed, and N discovered that our Artisan cheese board came with the thoughtful accompaniment of Welch’s grape jelly. Classy….real classy guys.
For entrées, S simply got a salad (again, she couldn’t recover from the plastic cheese), which was a direct and overpriced re-boot of Cantina Laredo’s cranberry-pecan salad (which you can coincidentally get at Wendy’s now, WITH CHICKEN for a mere 6 bucks). N’s entrée was so forgettable, we’ve since forgotten what it was.
For dessert, we got the noted Chocolate Sack, which was pretty, and mildly tasty, but required a butcher knife and a remake of Friday the 13th to disassemble it enough for actual consumption.
All in all, our experience at Windrush wasn’t that bad. It was confusing, laughable, disappointing and at over 100$ for the two of us, it was not an experience worth repeating.
Tasting Shreveport 