Shish Willesden

This place has gone bust, maybe not surprising considering the most recent reviews.
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Dutch_Food - View all reviews by this user
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, September 13, 2009

This used to be quite a good place and for Willesden it was one of the few places where you could sit in a nice environment. However, the restaurant seems to have gone down hill.

We went for dinner during the week. The restaurant had between 3-5 other tables over the course of our dinner and appeared to have only 3 waiting staff and 2 kitchen staff. Obviously not expecting to be busy. Neverless it seemed as if there was 1 waitress as the other 2 spent most of the time chatting in the kitchen or cleaning cutlery, crockery and glasses. Unsurprisingly, we had to wait to be seated even though it was half empty.

We ordered the bread which apparently is made on site. This took nearly 20 mins and this was only starters, You get three different types in the basket, one was bland and the other was too salty. (You can see into the kitchen and see the staff not doing anything which makes it even more infuriating).

The main course was ok althought this took another 20 mins, not sure why when the kebab meats are the only thing that needs to be cooked. We had the Afghan Chicken and Chicken Satay wraps with salad. These were ok, nothing special. Considering this is in Willesden, you would hope for amazing kebabs given the competition nearby and the prices they wish to charge. We also had 2 mint teas which were a little bland.

We also used a 2 for 1 voucher on the main course and the total for the above was £18 (inc. using the voucher).

There are much better restaurants in North West London serving Middle Eastern Food and for much better value. Unless somebody promised me that it had improved, i would not be returning.
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3 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 3
Friday, March 20, 2009

Our drinks took 10 minutes to arrive, which wouldn't be too bad in some circumstances but considering there were only 2 other couples in there it wasn't acceptable.

We had the mixed hot mezze to start which to be honest were very nice if a little bit small. The mains were a different story - I ordered the kashmiri lamb wrap with chips and vegetables. The wrap came served in paper (which I found a bit weird) and when I tried to unwrap the paper I found that it was actually stuck to the pitta which meant that however softly I tried to remove it the contents spilled out everywhere. The chips (all 11 of them) were soft, soggy and salty. The veg turned out to be a small bowl of pickled raw veg (cauliflower, carrot and an unidentifable melon looking vegetable) which were all fowl.

Jen went for the haloumi shish with cous cous. The haloumi cheese was nice but the cous cous was really dry and came with a strange looking, fowl vegetable broth.

To her credit the waitress was open to the criticism we gave and fairly apologetic. Unfortunately the damage was done and the service charge which was added was destined to be ignored.

Maybe we were unlucky and the price was reasonable (£30) but I wouldn't go back.
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Dan
5 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 8
Thursday, March 19, 2009