Review content:
I love the Cow! The food is great, the prices are fabulous, the staff is friendly, the music is good, and the crowd is usually pretty chill. It's also as authentic Aussie as you'll find in NYC, and since I miss Sydney all the time, that does my heart very, very good.
There isn't a thing on the menu I don't like, but I especially recommend the Bara (sometimes served over chopped shrimp, potatoes and bacon, sometimes served over a papaya fruit salad), the Bessie (skewers of beef with horseradish sauce served with a vegetarian lasagna), and the Chook sticks (that's chicken, served over risotto, and it's pronounced "chuk"). For desert, you must try the Pav (that's Pavlova for the unfamiliar). It's an amazing confection of whipped cream, meringue, and other tropical fruits and is sort of the Aussie equivalent of strawberry shortcake.
The Cow is always having great specials, and on Monday night, everything is $5 -- each entrée and each drink. Food is tapas-sized, but on the large side for that, so one entrée works for those on a diet, and two is enough for most people. The mixed drinks are great, although some, disturbingly, are served in baby bottles. Also, you may need a particular sense of humor to face the story of why the place is called The Sunburnt Cow.
They also have an excellent brunch. In the summer the roof over the back room is retracts, providing bright, airy dining. Since the restaurant is adjacent to a community garden, you won't even feel like you're in New York.
The place is very generous with its customers, and when I held my birthday there a few years ago, they were quite kind with the buybacks.
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