Excuse the badtardisation of a song but 'oh won't you take me to Cowtown'. A new enough cafe on Manor Street which I hope and believe will become a national treasure here, Cowtown cafe is simply perfect.
If you are looking for a real authentic fish and chips, yummy sambo (sandwich) and tea, delicious salad and other 'real' home comfort type Irish and English grub, Cowtown is the prime place to go.
Setting and ambience:
The cafe has a really nice and simple diner style decor, with simple tables and fairly decent spacing between each. Table sizes range between two persons and four. You might be asked to share a table at busy hours which personally I have no issue with, but they don't get 'thick' with customers who prefer their own company and personal bubble.
There's some 'funky' pieces of art work and talking pieces but nothing that desperately fosits "we're so cool right?!' about the art work and layout. It's very 'true to itself' and there's no bang of a desperate need to be thought of 'groundbreaking', 'surreal' etc attached to the place, so ye hung over folk don't need to worry about garish colours and patterns turning your tumny!
The atmosphere changes depending on the time, at lunch it's busy and energetic but the (brilliant) staff keep up with all orders and you aren't waiting too long. After work hours it's more laid back, food still arriving promptly, and great for a catch up with a mate or two or three.
The staff are a brilliant asset to the place, the two waitresses I encountered were friendly, genuine and easy going with a great sense of humour and great customer service (I think they have a 6th sense for which customers like a natter and which prefer to just order and be let be alone.) They are a lovely team and all the staff (from my inadvertent eavesdropping where I was sitting) are really nice and respectful to each other which is a rare thing in such a busy place, especially in the Dublin city area.
Food: if you're Irish or English think of your childhood favourites, perfectly cooked fish and chips (including the nostalgic 'feck! These are a bit hot!' re the chips, but good things come to those who wait!), lovely jubbly fry's, homemade and feel good soups, extremely generously filled chicken stuffing mayo, BLTs, ham and cheese sandwiches that really remind me of my granddad's sandwiches and childhood picnics where one didn't worry about calories and that malarkey. For those who crave something a bit more unusual, their falafel burger is just fantastic, the flavours are unusual but really compliment each other and utterly scrumptious! I haven't tried their Caesar Salad but having seen it today, I definitely will!
For the non Irish and UK folk reading this, all the above dishes are each unto themselves brilliant examples of the type of cuisine the Irish and the English have to offer (they do coddle! Try coddle! Think stew but with sausages instead of beef, HEAVEN!), you won't be disappointed.
Seriously, I cannot recommend this place enough, it suits all types that just want a good meal without the obsession of instragramming every forkful. It's genuine, generous and generally great.
5 stars!
(If you need me to complain about anything, the only only thing is that there's one bathroom per gender but seriously, if that's the only criticism I can find when casting my mind back, I really think this just goes to show how fantastic this place is).
Long live Cowtown! read more