Review - Holy Cow!

With two locations in Lausanne, Holy Cow! is essentially a gourmet burger restaurant. As someone who likes the kind of food served in McDonalds and Burger King, this is right up my street. In all honesty though, it doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as those fast food peddlers - Holy Cow! is in a league of it's own when it comes to burgers.

I have eaten at the Holy Cow! a few times since I moved here, and I have never been disappointed. My brother-in-law first described the food to me in 2009 as delicieux, and convinced me to try it with him (didn't take him long to convince me, to be fair). The Holy Cow! prides itself on sourcing it's meat locally from the canton of Vaud, and burgers are freshly prepared on site, adding to the succulent taste of the food.


Elvis Blue Cheese pic borrowed
from The Burger Blog

The burgers all have different names, such as the Elvis Blue Cheese and the Smokin' Holy Cowboy (both of which I have tried and loved). The menus are written in French and English, as is their website, and the staff can all speak English to help out hungry tourists.

Meal deals originally came with freshly-made potato crisps as an accompaniment to the burger, but have recently changed to being chunky chips. I quite liked the idea of having crisps with the meal instead of chips, but apparently they changed due to customer demand. Stupid customers...

Price-wise, Holy Cow! is not particularly cheap. I had a Smokin' Holy Cowboy burger and meal for 24.- CHF. Admittedly this was because I paid an extra 5.- CHF to have a double burger, but even at 19.- CHF it's still pretty pricey. However, the old saying that you get what you pay for is certainly true here, as you are paying for sheer quality.

In terms of seating, the newer restaurant has a few tables with benches, but these fill up really quickly at lunch and dinner times. I arrived at 12:05pm once and the tables were already full. The original site has one small area inside the restaurant for eating, basically big enough for about three people, so you are pretty much obliged to take your burger away with you. In fairness, every time I have eaten at Holy Cow! I have eaten my burger elsewhere (which is fine if it is a sunny day).

Loads of information about Holy Cow!, including the menu, can be found on their website.

As mentioned above, there are two Holy Cow! restaurants to choose from in Lausanne, so I have listed both below.

Site 1 - the original Holy Cow!
Address:       Rue Marterey 1-3, 1005 Lausanne
Open:           Mon – Sat: 11:30 – 16:30

Site 2 - the newer restaurant (with better opening hours)
Address:       Rue des Terreaux 10, 1003 Lausanne
Open:           Mon – Wed: 11:00 – 22:00, Thur – Sat: 11:00 – 23:00

Ratings (overall for both sites):

06 / 10 - Location - the Rue des Terreaux site is a ten minute walk from where I work! By car neither site is particularly easy to reach (not many nearby parking spaces)

09 / 10 - Food - I cannot fault their burgers, and portion sizes are very generous, but they miss out on a perfect score because they now serve meals with chips instead of crisps

05 / 10 - Price - the burgers are pretty expensive... but worth it!

Overall - 6.6 / 10 - it is expensive and you'll have to eat your burger as takeaway, but the deliciousness of the food makes it worth the trip.

Sixty Days in Suisse - Part VI

Tests, Tickets and Triumph

Week six of Lausanne life rolled around quicker than expected. Having booked my MCTS exam for the Thursday of this week, I spent the days leading up to it frantically trying to make sure I had actually remembered what I had read in the course material, so that I wouldn't make a complete hash of the exam.

To say I was nervous about the exam would be a huge understatement - I was terrified, partly because I hate exams and never feel confident about them, but also because the exam fee is separate to the course cost, meaning every time I sit an exam I have to pay for it (therefore failing and resitting would be quite pricey).

I didn't get much sleep in the days before I was due to take the test, and when the day came I really was not confident that I would pass.

Sixty Days in Suisse - Part IV

Sunsets, Sight-seeing and Sausages

More SQL Server studying in my fourth week here, with me sat in front of my laptop for more than 5 hours each day. It certainly was not easy, although learning a brand new subject by yourself is never something that is easy to do. Undeterred by the blurry eyes I had at the end of each day, I plodded on with my studies, aiming to take the MCTS exam within the next couple of weeks.



To take a break from the learning, Nelly and I went out for a walk along the lake in Vidy late one afternoon, just as the sun was setting.^

Queue some more photography - I managed to get a few nice shots of the sun disappearing behind the distant mountains, with the last of the sun's rays reflecting on the surface of the water.

It seems so easy to take nice pictures in Switzerland, as almost everywhere you go has some sort of natural beauty, whether it's a lake, a mountain or a rolling field in the countryside. Photographers must love it here!

Sixty Days in Suisse - Part III

Learning, (more) Learning and Lunching

My third week in Switzerland was much more subdued than previous weeks, mainly because I really needed to concentrate on getting a large chunk of my course done. Although the home learning course has no deadlines (I have to book exams myself and can wait until I am ready to do so), I was eager to try and get through as much of the course material as possible as I felt I needed the certification on my Curriculum Vitae to be able to find a job here.

And so, I spent almost the entire week staring at the computer screen, trying to absorb as much information as possible. Not the most fun week I have ever had, but I made a lot of progress on my course so some good came of it.