Last month, Britney and I celebrated our 5th Anniversary at the Mabry House here in Shreveport. I'm embarrassed to say this was my first time there, considering we've lived in Shreveport for almost 4 years now. I've had many friends encouraging me to check it out for some time, and now I can officially mark it off my list.
For those familiar with the place, its needless to say, I've heard a lot of great things and there is a significant amount of hype surrounding it. When I get a lot of recommendations on a restaurant, I always get a little nervous that it won't meet the expectations that continue to build from every new plug. That being said, I can happily say, it was fantastic!
We started by ordering a couple of appetizers, one on the menu and one off (shown above). The crispy duck with a sweet thai sauce was good, but I honestly wouldn't have known I was eating duck, as the batter was pretty heavy and there was A LOT of sauce for how sweet it was. Don't get me wrong...it was good, but not the "Mabry House" quality I had heard so much about. The second, was a wonton wrapped ahi tuna, sitting on a sesame seed and cilantro curry. The sauce was everything I hoped from the name, but the tuna itself was overcooked and really could have been anything inside the wrapper. The fish was also under salted, which probably wouldn't have been a problem if it hadn't been cooked so much.
For the next course, I had the house salad; a caesar with lots of fresh crushed black pepper. It was very good and wasn't over dressed and soggy. Britney had a mixed greens salad with roasted mozzarella cheese. It was very very good! The cheese itself had been wrapped in greens to hold it together during cooking. Brit also had a cup of tomato basil soup that was by far the best I've ever had. That probably had a lot to do with the fact there was a ton of smoked gouda cheese melting on top of it.
For Britney's main course, she had the crab cakes which were very good, but there was almost too much butter. Now I know...Jordan, that sounds crazy, how can you have too much butter? But there was. It made the cakes almost "greasy." Brit enjoyed them none the less. I ordered the ribeye, which the description read, "with onions." Very understated description of this dish. The ribeye came out pre-sliced on a bed of what appeared to be white-gravy/light roux/sauce, which I later found out was a puree of onions that had been cooked down and pureed until they were creamy. Just to add to it, there were crispy onions on top. That in and of itself, was amazing, but the steak melted in my mouth. It was a typical aged ribeye, but with an additional 30 days of aging. INCREDIBLE! I got home and immediately started researching how to dry age beef this way, so I'm thinking I may have do some experimenting at home to see if I can recreate this miracle. At this point in the meal, any and all flaws or imperfections with the meal, no longer mattered. Absolutely in the top 3 steaks I've ever had.
Usually after eating at a place like this (where I have consumed an estimated pound of butter already) my stomach isn't up for dessert...fortunately, Brit always is. We split a bread pudding with bourbon sauce. It was near perfection as well. It wasn't overly mushy or dry and the bourbon sauce was spot on.
Unique atmosphere, fantastic service, and great food. I won't wait another 4 years to go back...I promise.
