Silver Cow

Short: awful service, bad food, ho-hum craft beer

Long: Saw 4-stars on Yelp with 22 reviews, open until midnight with the kitchen also open until midnight. Sounded like a good alternative to late night food and craft beer compared to Kickback’s. Their craft beer menu is digital and not on the chalk board, so the server had to leave her iPad at our table to peruse. I’m guessing that this system would not work if there were multiple tables wanting to see the beer list.

Each table had 1 paper food menu and 1 paper wine menu. With three people at our table, we were not given two extra menus. The food selection was extensive, which worries me, about 30 dishes in total. The food menus were organized differently from each other, i.e. someone had misarranged the paper inserts. Menu had appetizers, charcuterie, salads, flatbreads. We told our server we would split the baba ganoush and pita, greek salad, bruschetta, and portobello sandwich.

I order beer #1 off the digital list. It had kicked. Ordered beer #2 then, it was a pour of the kegs "dregs," i.e. the yeast slurry/sediment that settles at the bottom of the keg. This is fit for consumption, but should be served for free and after explaining to patrons why their beer looks like an opaque milkshake.

Then, we were never given extra plates for sharing these dishes. We had these after asking, but one of the dishes was completely wet.

Baba ganoush + pita was good to fair with limp pita and warm, smokey baba ganoush.

Portobello sandwich tasted liked it had been microwaved with molten lava center that burned the roof of my mouth and soggy, wet, thin, mushy bread.

Potato salad side was simply ’gross,’ which I don’t think I’ve ever had to describe a dish on Yelp before. Tasted just nasty like sour mayonnaise and vinegar.

Greek salad took 25 minutes to come out. Not sure how that was possible since it is a mixture of raw foods. It tasted okay with just a mix of basic ingredients. Dressing was okay. Feta cheese tasted strange.

Finale of bruschetta, usually an appetizer, coming out last, was ’best of show’ in the most sarcastic sense. This was non-toasted baguette slices with a topping of canned minced garlic used for cooking. This was raw though piled atop the bread with canned sun-dried tomatoes topped with powdered Kraft parmesan cheese. It looked like something from Kitchen Nightmares or Bar Rescue. It was all but inedible.

I would normally give this a 1-star, but the owner finally came over after maybe our server got the hint that we were not happy. We were most upset with portobello sandwich and the bruschetta, so they were removed from our bill, which was nice.

The owner made excuses for their new chef, but it isn’t the chef’s fault. The decor, menu template, recipes, service, and beer care were all poor.

When I visited: Late March 2014. What I had: Over the course of two visits – Two Brothers Domaine DuPage, Saint Somewhere Crépuscule Amber Saison, Swamp Head Big Nose IPA, Sweetwater 17th Anniversary Ale - Farmhouse Saison, and Mikkeller Beer Geek Bacon on tap, several glasses of 2012 Grand Cru Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc for my better half, Three Amigos Taco Plate, Baked Pretzel, and Kel-Belle’s Brie to split. What I liked: Wonderfully laidback and inviting atmosphere (like going to a friend’s house), plenty of seating throughout the bar, fun and quirky decor, well laid out beer and food menus, owner and waitress were very engaging on both visits, stunning draught list with excellent style diversity, proper glassware, tasty food, solid range of wine options, fair prices, Cantillon, Fantôme, Drie Fonteinen, and other gems in bottles. What I disliked: Nothing that I can think of. Would I go back? You bet. Silvercow is an outstanding beer bar with a bright future ahead of it. Overall Rating: 94