The Plate Lunch

It’s been such a long time since I’ve had one of my favorite lunches around town that I had to drop into the Windsor Court to see how it has held up. So much is different that I wondered what was happening with the "Meat-And-Three", lunch special that is now called The Plate Lunch. It is also 40% more than it was when it began 10 years ago.

The idea for a lunch special that was really cheap for The Windsor Court began when the hotel turned 40 years old back in 2014. It started as the $20.14 lunch. And then it became the "Meat-And-Three", a play on the old American diner special, which is a meat and three sides. 

In a diner this is all really ordinary food, but the fun part of this one was how fancy it was. Arrayed carefully on a beautiful plate rather than a tray or melamine dish a diner chooses from a list of 7 “proteins” as we call them now, and 7 sides. One meat and three sides.

I have had great luck in this format. The meal starts with the most delicious little herbed biscuits. These are so good it’s hard to stop eating them. 

On this visit I really wanted the crab cake because I always have crab cakes on the mind. It cost $10 extra to choose that as the “Meat” for the Plate Lunch, so I got it as an appetizer. And for the meal I chose the short rib slider and fries, truffle macaroni and cheese, with gumbo.

The gumbo was the starter. It was not the same gumbo I have loved here in the past, but I loved this one just as well. It was not as dark a roux as the other one, but it was terrific, with lots of meat and flavor galore. I could have made a meal out of this. It was so filling I could have stopped there.

But of course I didn’t because everything else looked so fabulous. The truffle macaroni and cheese was just gorgeous, filling out a little baking dish. When I punctured the crusty cheese top, it revealed a density of macaroni that had been stuffed into every space in this little dish, oozing creamy deliciousness. I don’t usually care for the truffling of things, but I enjoyed this extra richness to what was already an obscenely decadent casserole of shellbows and white cheddar..

I asked the server the same question I aways ask in a place like this when French fries are mentioned: are they housecut? To my surprise I was told that they had just started doing them in house. A place on this level should always be doing them in house, but it had been many years since that has been the case. I had to have some of the new housecut fries.

They were fantastic. They did not come with an aioli, which is the norm as an accompaniment to housecut fries. They brought me an individual ketchup bottle. These were a great size, crispy with a nice skin factor on a lot of the fries.The little slider was almost a disappointment. Short rib used to be one of the meats, but a sider offers an acceptable way to cut down on the portion of meat and to add more fat, which is exactly what happened here. Still, this was a good little slider.

The crabcake was as good as it was beautiful. With lumps of crabmeat falling out all over. The remoulade sauce was good too.

After COVID my heart was broken when we visited. The pandemic seemed to hit them hard, and the place was a mere shadow of its former self.  Instead of menus we were given a barcode to scan. What??? Tom and I spent our wedding night there and have been coming every year since to celebrate our anniversary. It was our home away from home, our Pied-à-terre. It seems to have gradually climbed its way back, and I was happy to see that with this last experience. If you haven't had The Plate Lunch, do.