The Cowfish (Restaurant Review)
I recently had the opporJUNIty to visit The Cowfish restaurant in the North Hills area of Raleigh. Now this has not been my first visit to the restaurant but it had been a while since I’d been here. We reviewed the menu online and saw that not much had changed since the last time and the pictures on the website looked quite appetizing. I called the restaurant ahead to find out what the wait time was since I recalled having to wait about an hour last time I visited. Surprisingly I was told there was not a wait, we grabbed our wallets and keys and headed to there.
It was a pretty nice day out so everyone was out and about enjoying the weather. When we got to the restaurant, there was now a 30-40 minute wait time. We patiently waited and entertained ourselves with the oversized game of Connect Four they had on the patio. They have a convenient waitlist system that sends you a text message a few minutes before your table is ready so that way you’re able to wander around the shopping center. When I got the text we headed inside and got seated at a high top near the bar.
The inside was pretty loud but it is to be expected for such a large restaurant on a busy day especially when the weather is nice. The waitress was very friendly and a little humorous, she took our drink orders as we browsed the menu. Being the dessert fiend that I am, I flipped to the shakes section. All of the shakes sounded so good! But in the end I decided on THE MARSHMALLOW CRISPY TREAT, the description reads:
Rice Krispies and mallow cream blended with vanilla bean ice cream. Topped with crispy rice treats.
I got my milkshake a few minutes later and quickly started slurping it down. So quickly I forgot to snap a picture for you guys, my bad. I will say the presentation wasn’t anything impressive so you guys aren’t missing much. The taste, however, was delicious! It tasted like a creamy blended up Rice Krispies treat. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! As we review the menu I see they have the option to substitute any burger patty for the veggie option. I love mushrooms and any earthy taste. So much that Chase, my fiancé, has told me if I could I’d probably eat a bowl of dirt. I was drawn to the BLACK TRUFFLE CHEESE BURGER which is a Half-pound beef burger, black truffle cheese, roasted shallots, sautéed mushrooms, roasted garlic aioli and lettuce on brioche bun. I of course substituted the beef and to feel a little fancier replaced the lettuce with arugula. Chase chose THE JALAPEÑO POPPER SHOW–STOPPER Half-pound beef burger, jalapeño-infused cream cheese, jalapeño bacon, fried jalapeños, jalapeño citrus aioli, lettuce, tomato, fresh sliced jalapeños, brioche bun. Jorge was there with us too and he is the most indecisive person. He was debating between THE SCREAMIN’ KOREAN CHICKEN and THE THUNDERING HERD BISON BURGER. I read both of the descriptions and they both sounded pretty good, the website had a picture of the chicken sandwich and it looked pretty appetizing. He decided on that one.
We have been on a fried pickle kick lately so we got the fried pickles and spicy cherry peppers as the appetizer. The pickles were hot, crispy and tangy. The batter wasn’t too thick and it stuck nicely to the pickles, they were paired with buttermilk ranch and a zesty horseradish sauce which made the pickles that much more enjoyable. We pretty much inhaled the basket, I’m surprised no one lost a finger in the crossfire. The burgers came to the table not too long after we were done with the pickles. The first thing we noticed is the size of these burgers, they are pretty big. Mine looked a little messy but I was ok with that. I chose the seaweed salad as my side and that looked like a hefty portion. Chase’s burger looked fine but Jorge’s looked like they put an entire chicken on top of a bun. The size of the chicken filet was huge! My guess is they butterflied an entire chicken breast and used that as the portion. He got the Thai cucumber salad as his side.
BLACK TRUFFLE CHEESE BURGER
substituted for veggie burger and a side of seaweed salad
I picked up my burger and took my first bite and with the first bite the guts fell out. That was a little disappointing, so I set it down and shoved them back in. I’m pretty good at shoving things in. The taste was good, I like the creaminess of the garlic aioli and the mushrooms gave me that earthy taste I desired. The truffle cheese was a little lackluster, I expected it to have a stronger flavor but it was only a tease of truffle. No one likes a tease. Chase’s only complaint was that his burger was well done so it was a bit dry. Now Jorge’s sandwich was the real kicker. In order to even attempt to pick up his sandwich he had to carve out the sides the chicken. He took his first bite and then the second bite. He set it down and said “for a sandwich that claims to be screaming it has no flavor.
The Screamin' korean chicken
side of Thai cucumbers
“Screaming Korean? More like she’s whispering.” I was in disbelief how can something covered in kimchi and sriracha ranch lack flavor? I popped the top bun off and took a scoop of the toppings. He was right! The kimchi lacked flavor, it was as if it had not been fermented long enough and there was almost no trace of sriracha flavor anywhere. He took the bottle of sriracha on the table and smothered his sandwich to attempt to give it some flavor. Jorge is no picky eater, he will pretty much eat anything in front of him and is not the type of person to send things back. He had a few more bites and was done. When the time for the check came around the waitress offered him a box for the half sandwich he had left and he politely declined. If I am paying $15-16 for a sandwich you best believe I am going to finish shoving that thing down my throat one way or another. We paid our tabs and left. Our experience left us with an emptiness too great to bear. If you are in the mood for some bomb shakes and fried pickles then definitely check it out but as Chase so eloquently put it,“I won’t be in a rush to come back.”
On my scale of “No Ma’am to Yass Gawd” I give The Cowfish a -Meh-