What's happened to Sea Cow? (Lounged)

[Asset]

Doesn't surprise me.

[Louisa]

Go and eat some fancy fish at Seacow you devil, you know you want to be a cut above the rest ;-)

Louisa.

[lozzyloz]

If this thread was a fish I'd throw it back!

Let's not forget why this thread was important in the first place. The Sea Cow is one of many establishments that most of us enjoy and part of what makes ED a little different to every other cloned high street in the country. If it was Cheese Block serving up minging Stinking Bishop there'd be a thread about it. Similarly if The Bishop served warm flat beer there'd be a thread demanding we boycott it and drink at the CPT. Why? Because a lot of us care. The Sea Cow have screwed up but they've also taken it on the chin and are earning brownie points because they're prepared to do something about it.

When Sea Cow is frying on all cylinders, it really is something special and I for one hope they can get it right again. Louisa it might not be to your taste but you cant ignore the bottom line, to quote Sean, "We have the option to go either or." Emily's, Sema's, Olleys, Jolly Bee, Sea Cow. They appeal to different people for different reasons, be it the food, price or staff. If they stop cutting it then they're out of business.

[Mark]

Just to go back on something I said earlier, the Seacow was open this evening when I walked past.

[Louisa]

egg, face, mark, sorry, childish.

Louisa.

[susyp]

Bit late responding to Dan's offer of Sardines but just wanted to throw in that I would definitely try them - I've never found decent sardines in Britain and I love them when I go to Greece. And they're super good for pregnant women :))

[Keef]

Louisa Wrote:

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> I think criticism where critiscism is due, and in this case this damned place should have been getting it months ago, but now everyone is bandwagon jumping I may as well join in and be seen to be "mean spirited" as Sean has pointed out. I personally think a chippie is a chippie, if you want to charge restaurant prices open up as Wheelers or some other fancy fish restaurant, dont sell standard fish and chips and give it some snobby label like this place has done. I dont see what the issue is with selling pies and fishcakes and sausages anyhow, surely thats what this type of take-away does? Maybe I grew up in some bizarre location which is completely different to everywhere else in the UK then. As for the

standard of the food served *bob* well i'd rather eat at somewhere like Semas or Emilys where I know the food is fresh and doesnt pretend to be.

To be fair Louisa The Seacow isn't really a chippy is it. If you go somewhere like Whitby you'll find loads of fish and chip places like Seacow that sell fish and chips, but no pies / savaloys / battered sausages. I wouldn't call this sort of place a chippy, a chippy is Emily's or Semas, both of which are fab, but the Seacow is a different type of place and can't really be compared.

I personally don't eat fish, so don't really care if the seacow is there or not, much like I don't care about Green & Blue because I'm not a big wine drinker. However, I wish them no ill, and think that the owners of Seacow deserve some respect for reacting so positively to the comments on here.

[citizenED]

Perhaps they could try Sea Cow fillets on the menu

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~fasawwu/resources/endangered/sea-cow.png

[mockney piers]

I went in last night for a bit of coley (sold out) so went with the Haddock, fresh, white and delicious. Batter was nice, not greasy, not overcooked, and Dan was in fine good-service form. So I for one am glad to see the Sea Cow making the effort again!

[fatfightersforever]

I went there on sat night and was pleased to see Seacow well and truly back on form. The lovely owner offered us free coley starters (delicious, not bland at all) and all our meals were wonderful, freshly cooked and back up to size. The owner guy was really making an effort to make sure all customers were happy and we had great service and a lovely time. Seacow is a great plus for ED (he's closed the Clapham one down) so hope that all fish lovers will support this great restaurant, would be awful if they threw in the towel having tired of ED forum rants!! mockney piers Wrote:

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> I went in last night for a bit of coley (sold out)

> so went with the Haddock, fresh, white and

> delicious. Batter was nice, not greasy, not

> overcooked, and Dan was in fine good-service form.

> So I for one am glad to see the Sea Cow making the

> effort again!

[Dolly]

I have to join in here, as I have been having so much fun reading Louisa's words of wisdom!!

I have eaten there many times, although not for a few months, and at the one they used to have in Clapham, and yes sometimes its great, sometimes its not. Being a restaurant manager myself, you cannot please everyone, and these days everyone seems to be a food critic and from a Fishmongering background, or they are a cousin of Gordon Ramsey's, so its nice to see the guys that own it obviously listening to comments, and trying to turn things around. FYI Louisa, fish is now available every day fresh. It has a day and then 2 days shelf life, which means it is more then able to make it through the weekend, although not at its freshest on a monday, there is certainly nothing wrong with it. Most large fish suppliers will actually hold their own fresh stock alive, and the fish are killed in the morning, so they arrive at the restaurants 5-8 hours as fresh as they can be - and I know that because I worked for the largest Fish chain in the country for a few years. Fair play to them for coming on here, and I wish them well, and if they did put sausages etc on, they would then have to worry about cross contamination, and being one of those vegetarians that eats fish, I wouldn't be able to eat their food if it was all cooked in the same fryer. And if Dan is back in the restaurant, I will have to pop in as he is pleasing to the eye!! Sorry Mr. Administrator I am staying on the thread now!!

[Frisco]

I want then to start serving organic mechanically recovered saveloys, and I won't be eating there until they do! >:D

[Domitianus]

I still want to know what happened to the lovely Nina who used to work there. She was the tastiest thing on the menu.

[the seacow]

Louisa, can I buy you a drink sometime?

I know you think the restaurant is poncey and that we should stick to the fundamentals of a chippie and sell all the usual crap most of them do. It goes against my principles as I know how much that rubbish costs wholesale and roughly what goes into it. I worked alongside an organic pig farmer at many music festivals last summer and whilst I don't bang the organic drum to jump on the bandwagon, I think a simple taste test of his product against a 6p sausage speaks volumes. Saveloys, battered sausages, deep fried chicken wings occupy a market we will never venture into because ultimately they exploit almost everyone involved in them, including the punter. It is no conincidence that the growth of cheap, highly fatty foods has seen us the fattest nation in Europe and only second to the US globally. We want to provide something better than that and I've put my hand up and said that my staff should be shot out back for ballsing it up the last 6 months.

I embrace competition but I am a firm believer in working alongside other traders and not stepping on toes. When I lived in Clapham, Sainsbury's came along and looked at the high street and decided to sell everything the small operators close by did. Shops naturally shut and the diversity of the street was diluted. I'll let others sell those things and try and concentrate on doing my bit well (again).

All the best

Paul

PS Reckon you drink Landlord.

[Louisa]

Paul you've won me over you charmer, I shall pop in for lunch later this week. I think i've already pointed out after having read the menu, prices arnt exactly dramatic so i'll give you a wee taste test. I expect a Louisa seal of approval above the door by friday.

Louisa.

ps i'm into real ales and rose wine ;-)

[the seacow]

Lovely. Ask for Dan and a glass of rose on me.

[Frisco]

Well, I went to Sea Cow tonight in the hope of trying their coley, so here's some honest, and almost instant, customer feedback.

I asked for coley, but was told that it wasn't available, but the other fish listed on the specials board was. Both of the specials, unless my eyesight is worse that I imagined, seemed to be marked on the specials chalk board as costing ?4. Also, in my experience, most restaurants rub out or strike through a special when it's finished for the day.

When I was told that the coley wasn't available but that the other fish on the special board was, I ordered that. However, I hadn't noticed that this fish came with salad rather than chips and that fact wasn't brought to my attention. When I asked what it was, I was just told that it was another white fish. I have to say that the fish and salad were very good, but I'd gone in for fish and chips, so I ordered a portion of chips as soon as I realised the alternative didn't come with chips. When they came they were very good chips, but they did take quite a bit longer than the four minutes the waitress had advised me they would take.

I wondered if there was a language difficulty for the waitress, and that or that she assumed that I would just have realised that the other fish on the special board came with salad. The problem was that I'd selected coley and assumed that it was available because it was showing on the board, and that I was just being offered a different fish rather than an alternative dish. If that had been made clear, I probably would have chosen cod or hake.

I was also a bit disappointed that, when I pointed out that the glass I'd just poured a bottle of sparkling water into had a chipped rim, I simply received a 'yes' from the waitress. It may have been a language thing, but while she did immediately replace both the glass, which was full of the water I'd just poured out, and gave me a new bottle of mineral water, she did so without any apology. She also made sure that she took away the first bottle, which had all of an inch of mineral water remaining in it, possibly just so that I didn't gain any advantage from having returned a chipped glass. Whether it was intentional or not, I felt as though I had pointed out something that shouldn't have been of concern.

While the food I had at Sea Cow was very good, my other relevant observations are:

My table had clearly not been cleaned since it had last been used, and I don't believe that, given that they still had crumbs on them and curled corners, the paper place mats had been changed between customers.

Also, from where the front of the frying range looked very smeared, and while it may have been perfectly clean, this didn't give the impression of attention having been paid to the kind of detail that customers sitting at the three tables nearest the front would notice.

My final point is of cost. As I pointed out above, unless I am mistaken, both specials on the board were marked as being ?4. Having sat waiting at my table for someone to look over so that I cold ask for the bill I got up and went to the till. The bill I was given was:

1 SPECIAL ?9.00

1 MINTY MUSHY PEA ?2.00

1 CHIPS ?1.50

1 SPARKLING WATER ?1.50

---------------------------

SUBTOTAL ?14.00

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TOTAL ?14.00

Thank You

Service not included (needless to say, I didn't leave any)

_________________________________________________________________

If you're wondering why I didn't raise this at the time, I initially assumed that I'd been wrong but I did take a good look at the specials board as I was leaving. I also guess that I fell into the usual English trap of not wishing to have any confrontation, which, in my experience, goes alongside a 'once bitten, twice shy' attitude to ever returning to a venue.

I should also explain that, besides, as stated earlier in the thread, wanting to try coley, I was doing a 'reccy' as I'm having one or two guests staying over the next couple of weekends, I was checking if Sea Cow would be a good place to take them. As I hope my other postings indicate, I went in hoping to be able to give positive feedback, but apart from the quality of the food, my experience wasn't that positive, especially as I'm left feeling confused about the bill.

[*Bob*]

Sounds like a fun night, Frisco.

Best put the white gloves in to soak in readiness for your next inspection.

[Frisco]

"Best put the white gloves in to soak in readiness for your next inspection."

No idea what you're on about, but at least my comments reflect my honest experience and are constructive. If it was humour, obviously you missed your chance when the original East Dulwich Comedy Club left town.

[Nero]

I understand Frisco's thoroughness in the same way I don't understand why people want to mock it. I also agree with the language difficulties that the waitresses seem to have. When I said I wanted a new round of mushy peas as they were too runny, she just said 'yes'. I am sure she didn't have the linguistic resources to say something colloquial like 'oh, sorry sir, I'll just get you a fresh lot. Shouldn't be too long'. Not a huge point, but it does make me wonder why the managers don't take this thing into consideration when hiring people. I'm going to give it another go next week. Nero

[Frisco]

"When I said I wanted a new round of mushy peas as they were too runny"

Fortunately, my minty mushy peas were just right, and possibly better than any others I've recently tasted.

I think the issue for Sea Cow is that they have to make improvements uniformly, so that the service and everything about the shop lives up to the improved standard of the food. That would seem to be very important if they are to succeed in differentiating themselves from the rest, and even local 'chippy' competition in the ED area. The food suggests it may be possible for them to gain awards, but it's doubtful that these are given to venues only on the basis of the quality of their food. If the owners of Sea Cow are aiming to be a better than normal eat-in fish and chip experience, then they should ensure that it is, and that the service and surroundings live up to expectations, rather than detracting from the (lately resumed) good quality of their product.

[DanRigby]

Frisco,

I hold my hands up to that one. I wrote the Coley and Chips on the specials board and forgot to and the price of the Tilapia to 7 and 9. I will get onto this tonight when I'm back in. The chips would of taken around 4 minutes as I have stated to the chefs that I want fresh chips cooking at all times. Peas, these are also cooked to order ensuring they are hot and not runny.

Staff training is the next thing on my list, I am looking to employ and english front of house manager that will hopefully start in the next week or so. Staff training will be on the top of her list.

If you come in and ask to see me I will refund you the difference as the mistake was mine.

All the best,

Dan

[Bellenden Belle]

I suspect we may have spied each other Frisco - because I indeed went in to try the Coley yesterday at about 9pm.

It is rare for me to leave a place without ordering but both Mr BB and myself experienced such an overwhelming smell of dettol and bleach, that it would have been rather like eating in a freshly cleaned toilet (no offence Dan).

And actually there was a funny atmosphere which I think came directly from the waitress - my initial thought was "oh they are closing" such was the welcome - it wasn't rude; just indifferent. My overall sense of sitting in the restaurant was one of confusion. Really strange.

[Keef]

I am starting to feel quite sorry for the seacow now. I'm not saying I doubt what anyone is saying, but I do feel that because they have been so bloody good about the critisism, people just start laying it on thicker and thicker.

[Bellenden Belle]

Hang on Keef... let's examine the facts here. I have loved Sea Cow in the past; I was then disappointed by the food so stopped going; and then - on the very basis of this forum and because I really really wanted to respond in a positive manner to what I see as being a very honest and genuine response by Seacow - made the effort to brave the cold and go to the Seacow last night.

It wasn't a good experience - that was all I was reporting.