The Cow, Westbourne Park

Skip The Nonsense

It’s your favourite right-wing Nazi media outlet back with another burst of brilliance regarding THE COW.

Yes, welcome to my very, very vaguely Eurovision-themed roast dinner review of The Cow in Westbourne Park. Whoa – straight into gear – no long-winded paragraphs of trolled nonsense before you finally find out what you are reading about. Terry Wogan would be proud.

So for this Sunday, I grew my beard, put on a dress and headed out to walk along the canal, hangover in (camel) tow, to the random number generator’s latest choice – The Cow in Westbourne Park.

You can breath a sigh of relief now – it is probably unlikely that I’ll think of any more Eurovision comparisons, so sit back, my fellow Nazi media heroes, and dream of a time when Britain was so white that even gravy was banned.

The Cow seemed an odd place. It didn’t look like an Irish pub yet there were a lot of Irish accents downstairs on arrival. There were unusual fish-related murals on the wall, various decorative oddities that made it seem like the 1970’s – and had probably been there since the 1970’s, and wonderfully, photographs of hot Spanish women in bikinis in the gentleman’s toilets. If there was a theme at The Cow – it had bypassed my insignificant intellect.

Upstairs at The Cow was completely different in some respects – the fish mural and decorative oddities were still there, but it was more of a proper restaurant, although it had the feel of a slightly-upmarket Little Chef. I wasn’t convinced that the wonky chair was going to take my weight – look it isn’t my fault I’m fat. Blame the Tories. The average person in socialist Venezuela lost 11kg in 2017.

Are you liking the added photographs? Word of warning – one later is technically not safe for work.

We were seated near the window – at one point there was possibly five of us coming for dinner, alas only two made it – which also meant no chef for company, of which I was quite looking forward to the additional insight, and someone actually knowing what herbs were used instead of guessing.

There was no challenge with the menu. Apparently The Cow specialises in fish (well…durrrrrr) and therefore there was only one choice of roast dinner – beef forerib. It might have been more appropriate to have gone for chicken to celebrate Israel’s Eurovision genius, but I have long given up on trying to think of Eurovision associations, plus forerib of beef is a damn nice cut. Gosh, I bet Corbyn was pissed off about Eurovision.

Oh hang on, Cyprus won, didn’t they?

We had to order straight away as the kitchen was closing – it was just after 3pm. As there was only one choice – forerib of beef for £19, this was pretty easy. Dinner arrived no more than 10 minutes later and away we go.

Starting with the carrots and they were both buttered and tender. Cut into diagonal slices, and plentiful in amount. A good start.

Then we had something unusual – spinach. I used to eat quite a lot of spinach, as can be seen from my physique – I like to think of my physique as a cross between John Prescott and Harry Potter, which may go some way to explaining why my sex-life is so non-existent.

Speaking of which – tangent alert – I was wondering the other day how much sex dolls cost, and was quite pleasantly surprised to find that a realistic model, weighing 5 stone, with a size 4 waist and DD boobs could cost as little as £1,749.99.

Alas, I do not have that kind of money, but it was still an opportunity for online window shopping, so I thought I’d check them out.

The first one (link NOT safe for work) had this kind of “check the written bit of Tinder” look, also known as potentially gender-reassigned. For that is the only reason anyone checks the written profile on Tinder.

Then this one looked like she had a third boob. Which would be a delightful temporary curiosity, but I imagine after a while that the novelty would wear off.

Which leads me onto another tangent (spinach – I haven’t forgotten), apparently one in 50 women, and one in 18 men, have a third nipple. Can you imagine? Even such talented luminaries as Lily Allen have a third nipple. Sorry, Lily, I am being rude – I’d happily let you join me for roast club.

The spinach was fairly ordinary but welcome. It wasn’t too wilted – it still actually resembled spinach.

Only two vegetables though both were plentiful – in an ideal world there would be more types of vegetables and less quantity of each, but hey. A few less words of wisdom from me.

You won’t be surprised about what came next – though the roast potatoes at least had some variety. Two of mine were simply uncooked. The oil was tasty, but they seemed like they had barely touched the roasting tray, my sharp meat-knife had some fair resistance, and chewing them wasn’t a pleasant experience. Another was al dente, to be polite – to the point of inoffensiveness, if perhaps because I am so used to shit roast potatoes. The final one was actually verging on being a good roast potato – not quite there, but another 10 minutes and it would be been one to be proud of.

They could however be proud of the Yorkshire pudding. Quite often I wonder about the pointlessness of them – seemingly grown so large for the purposes of Instagram only – this was just a small Yorkshire pudding, but perfectly formed. And there is an argument that this was the best Yorkshire pudding so far – the batter was gloriously thick in places, like when you make a Toad In The Hole. And for any foreigners reading, that is not a euphemism. The dolls also come with a pair of green eyes, extra set of finger nails and replacement vagina.

I am never going to think about replacement bus services in the same way ever again.

So from replacement vaginas to, erm, meat. Forerib is one of my favourite cuts of beef – this was perhaps without as much marbling as you may expect but that did no harm – there was flavour aplenty. Cooked medium with just hints of light pink – again not detracting from just how juicy and succulent this piece of meat was. The joint had been covered in herbs, which was very evident – adding a fragrance to the joint.

Ooh ahh just a little bit…of gravy. Man, I would have been gutted if the plate had come with enough gravy for a change. It was a thin and watery affair – I remain scarred from the near-death experience of two weeks ago, so anything that tastes better than burnt industrial effluent gets bonus points. This didn’t taste of much – and that was fine.

My accomplice had the horseradish – a homemade version but lacking the tang. I don’t believe in polluting gravy with other sauces.

Phone lines are open, call now and we’ll announce the result shortly. That number – 08712 201 201. Get dialling.

Not that The Cow will ever see what my rating is as they seem to have zero social media presence – Twitter hasn’t been updated since 2016 and Instagram only occasionally gets an update – and rarely of what they are selling.

And this was a good roast dinner – they should really be shouting about it more. When I arrived at 3pm, the restaurant was completely empty. I think at least another one, maybe two tables became occupied. It shouldn’t be that quiet. Sure, Westbourne Park isn’t especially a destination in that say, Brixton, Soho or Slough are, but this was a good…maybe even very good roast dinner and they shouldn’t keep themselves so quiet…as it doesn’t seem from my hour or so there that the restaurant is overly blessed with customers.

Unsurprisingly the worst part of dinner was the uncooked potatoes…best part is a toss-up between the gorgeous meat and the super-thick yorkie.

When the bill came, it was £31.50 each for dinner and half a carafe of house red. Oh yeah and fucking service charge. My eyes did slightly bulge out of their respective sockets in a “not another fucking election” kind of way, as it didn’t seem as though I had consumed that much. But hey, I’ve spent about £200 the last week and really have no idea what I’ve spent it on. General London consumption. And red wine from Tesco that tore my throat apart and tasted of balloons.

Just think…I could have saved that towards a doll.

So the votes have been counted and in Putin style I have decided to ignore all of you and give it a 7.76 out of 10. My accomplice said it was worth an 8. Sorry, but no roast dinner with uncooked potatoes gets an 8.

Next week I have royalty joining me.

Now I just need to wait to see what Barry thought…