The Georgetown restaurant frontier is like a phoenix: when one restaurant, such as the beloved deli Booeymonger, meets its eventual end, a new restaurant will rise from its ashes and unfurl its wings so patrons can delight in a brilliant brasserie.
La Bonne Vache, or “the good cow” in French, is a casual French bistro that sits on the northwest intersection of Potomac and Prospect streets. This quaint spot aims to offer traditional French entree dishes, with a specific focus on burgers and sandwiches, at an affordable price — most menu items are under $12. This eatery is one of many French restaurants flooding the nation’s capital, with multiple local competitors, such as Lucète and Brasserie Liberté, also cemented in the Georgetown neighborhood.
While the menu boasts an impressive array of sandwiches and burgers, it also offers a wide range of hors d’oeuvres and additional dishes to choose from. To get an approximate feel of the menu’s capabilities, a friend and I decided to tackle an appetizer, two burgers, a plate of fries and a dessert.
Our first dish of choice was the gougeres: gruyere cheese puffs served with a whipped paprika cream cheese accompaniment. Typically, I tend to view hors d’oeuvres as a palette transition, a chance to tell yourself, “Hey, let’s ease into the prospect of a good meal.” The gougeres lived up to this idea, as they were incredibly light and perfectly paired with the whipped paprika cream cheese’s slight kick. Following this dish, we were both hungry for more and eager to continue exploring the tastes of France.
When it came to the main course, we decided to each try a different kind of burger. I ordered the truffle et brieburger, and my friend ordered the steak au poivre burger, both of which were small enough to be considered sliders. Good things await those who devour small morsels, though, as these burgers surpassed my wildest expectations. I had never thought to put brie on a burger prior to eating here — but now, all I can envision is a nutty truffle aioli enveloping the slice of the rich cheese melting on my perfectly cooked burger patty.
One would think that all fries are just fries, and there’s nothing to gush about; this is where I have to cue the extremely loud buzzer signifying how incredibly wrong that is. La Bonne Vache’s pommes frites remained hot and crispy — the hallmark of any good fried potato — even after sitting on the table for over 10 minutes. Somehow, the garlic aioli that they were served with was even better. I am no stranger to garlic: I enjoy eating it raw and have eaten almost every form of it. I am used to places touting their garlicky items, only for them to appear as garlic whispers at best. On the contrary, this aioli practically screamed garlic. In fact, I’m sure people across the Potomac heard how much garlic there was. As the number of fries dwindled, my friend and I frantically fought to feast on every last spoonful of that delicious sauce.
To top it all off, the dessert was a perfect ending to a satisfying night. The mousse au chocolat was a heavenly spread, both in flavor and in texture, of dark chocolate, chantilly cream and crunchy chocolate pearls. Similar to the hors d’oeuvres, this bookend dish was incredibly bright and left us feeling comfortably full instead of inducing a 15-minute food coma. I cannot lie, discovering that dining at La Bonne Vache did not break the bank also helped comfortably settle my stomach.If you’re looking for a casual dining experience filled with quick, high-quality bites, let “the good cow” moo its praises and guide you over to La Bonne Vache.
