Cowiche Canyon Kitchen & Ice House

7/14/2016

Risky service. Jessica had some horse-related event in Yakima on Saturday and I was on call that weekend. I wanted to hang out with her, I like "Eastern" Washington (East of the Cascades), so I tagged along. The issue was that I was on call and had to be tethered to civilization in case tragedy struck. We were graciously hosted by Barry Bernfeld, a family friend in Yakima. We stayed out his house on Friday night, Jessica left early Saturday morning and I was quite bored the next day, wondering what to do with myself. I had a car that had been loaned to me from Barry, which was a really nice perk. Around lunch time I had decided I would entertain myself with a French Dip at a place that was ranked quite high in Foursquare. To be honest, Yakima does not, I repeat does not, have a lot going on there including not too many hoity toity restaurants like a person might see in a major metropolitan area like Seattle. It was 90 out that day so a nice little heat spell for me; a little mini-vacation. So anywho, I showed up at this place and it was really hard to find the door to get into it. WTH? So I eventually found the door and walked inside. It was nice and fancy and modern and such and there were a few people and the vibe was quite good. So here's the menu. Looking fine. Prime Rib Dip Ordering And there's the quite high-priced Prime Rib Dip at $16.50. "Thinly sliced prime rib, Cowiche roll, served with [note the use of with next to "au", the French word for with] au jus, horseradish sauce and thin-cut fries. Waiting So I ordered it and waited while I gazed deeply into my flower vase. And I also studied and enjoyed my ice water. And I appreciated my personal pepper mill and laundered napkin. I get the side salad delivered. Now you might expect at this point that I got something good. But I didn't. And I am ashamed to say, I do not have photographic evidence of the failure pile. But here were my notes of it: Sandwich Half #1 Meat is pink. Good looking bread. Lots of horseradish provided . Not a lot of jus. Ok but not huge size. Jus not streaming. Sandwich and meat not hot nor toasted much. Fresh good, unique bread. High quality meat. Complained after eating the first cold half. Dowell skewers. Bread Wasn't toasted sufficiently. Meat Nice quality but wasn't hot enough. Jus Good but wasn't hot enough. Too cold. So at this point I was totally dejected and sad. They brought me out a lukewarm sandwich that wasn't toasted very well and the jus wasn't hot. I felt like I was eating a normal roast beef sandwich and was super sad. And surprised that they would have served it to me. It clearly had all quality ingredients but it was served cold. It was some kind of mistake, some kind of mystery. Why had they given me THAT sandwich, of all sandwiches? Please, people, you NEED to pay attention to your quality and not ship shit out of the kitchen. So anyways, I complained and the brought me a new one. Looking good now, yeah? Nice looking jus, nice toasted bread, good looking meat (which by the way was now medium since I complained about the medium rare meat being too cold. It looks solid and professionally done. There's the evidence that I ate it all and that they gave me a heavy, professional-grade steak knife for my sandwich, a nice touch. Here are my tasting notes from the second half of the sandwich (after they had corrected the initial error): Sandwich Half #2 Second jus and sandwich hot and good, near 5 in simplicity and quality. The bread was much better toasted the second time (thank you!). Meat was served medium and much hotter the second time. Peppery taste. The plate was plain and boring. They could have added more flare to it like garnish. The price was quite high, especially in Yakima but it was also high quality and I can understand why they priced it so high because of the high quality ingredients. $13 could have been better and may sell more. Once I had wrapped it up, they never did ask if I liked my original meal and didn't clear my plate when I was finished, which I thought was rude. They did comp me on 1/2 off the sandwich and I tipped well. The first sandwich that I returned was was white, soft and basically cold (not hot enough). This was a revised version after I complained about the first one. Thanks and sorry. Bread Good local bread, toasted well. Firm. Meat Good prime rib but they made it medium to get it hot. Jus Good and hot, no complaints. I can't give it a 5 because I fear their inconsistency. Side Salad Salad was a 3 for quality but did have really bitter greens and required salt. Radishes and julienned carrot on salad. Pre tossed salad. Bitter but fresh greens. Salad needed salt and pepper, lacked flavor, bitter. It's fine. I'm happy they were able to recovery but it was pretty shaky for a moment there.