Dining at Cowfish in Universal: the unique fusion of burgers and sushi

A look at the menu and a review of Cowfish in Universal:

I love talking about Disney food on my blog (you might be able to tell from the number of restaurant reviews and food-related articles on here!). But Universal has really stepped up their game when it comes to dining in recent years, and I wanted to highlight one of my favorite restaurants over there.

Cowfish in Universal, located at Universal’s City Walk, is a pretty unique concept. It’s part burger joint, part sushi restaurant, so there should be something on the menu for everyone. And for the truly adventurous, they have some “Burgushi”!

I’ve dined here several times, but the most recent occasion was for the Mardi Gras “Float Ride and Dine” experience. During Universal’s Mardi Gras celebration they have a special parade, and if you’re interested you can actually be on a parade float!

While they have a virtual queue option to get on a float, the best way to guarantee your spot is to pre-purchase the “Float Ride and Dine” experience. This includes a 3-course meal at one of several select restaurants, plus a guaranteed spot on a float, for $85 per person. 

We decided to purchase this dining package on our last trip, and selected Cowfish as our restaurant. We were assigned a dining time (3:30pm – our float check-in time was 5:30pm with the parade starting at 6:15pm that night).

We could order anything we wanted off the Cowfish menu for an appetizer, entree, and dessert (all sushi rolls countd as an entree), as well as one non-alcoholic beverage. We were given instructions for float check-in and then were able to order anything off the menu. We were seated on an outside patio upstairs. Since it was a beautiful day this was really nice!

Appetizers

There were two of us, and lots of interesting sounding things on the menu, so we decided to split our appetizers and entrees so we could sample a bit more.

One of our two appetizers that we ordered was the Blackened Tuna Nachos (crispy wonton chips topped with crab rangoon dip, avocado salsa, tomatoes, and seared blackened tuna):

These were really good, and despite being nachos they were a smaller, more reasonable portion size. The wonton chips were crisp and delicious. The flavor on the tuna was great, and I’m not always a huge fan of tuna. All of the flavors here worked really well together and combined to make a delicious appetizer.

The other appetizer we got was the Spicy Poke Dip (spicy salmon, yellowtail and tuna poke, seaweed salad, with wonton chips).

I really enjoyed this, though I will say it really wasn’t spicy at all. I like spicy food but I’m definitely a wimp when it comes to that, so for me to say it wasn’t spicy means it couldn’t have had more than a hint of heat. That being said, it tasted great. The flavors were rich and paired well with the wonton chips.

Entrees

Since there were sushi and burger options, we decided to get one of each! For the sushi roll I selected one of their “burgushi” options, the Year of the Dragon Roll (char sui pork belly, avocado, cucumbers, Asian slaw, eel, red & yellow tobiko). This was a specialty menu option for this year (inspired by the Lunar New Year for 2024, the year of the dragon).

I was interested in the more unique nature of this, as it’s more of the “burgushi” fusion option that makes Cowfish unique. That being said, I was somewhat underwhelmed here. It was good but not great, in my opinion. It surprisingly didn’t have that much flavor, and I felt the pork belly got overwhelmed by the slaw and rice. I’m glad I tried it, but not something I would necessarily order again.

We also went with a more unique burger, ordering The Cowfish Has Officially Left The Building (full-pound beef burger, creamy peanut butter, fried bananas, applewood smoked bacon, brioche bun).

Wow, this is an awesome and unusual burger! It definitely works well for me, though I think you really have to like all of the ingredients in it. The sweetness of the bananas combined with the salty bacon and the nuttiness of the peanut butter sauce is such a great combination. The burger was good too, though in this case (at least for me) it’s really just the vessel for all of the other delicious flavors. 

It was also massive. It came as a double burger, though you can get it as a single. Even splitting it between two of us we couldn’t eat all of it. It comes with french fries, and these were your standard fries, nothing special. You can substitute a number of other items if you wanted to.

Desserts

Interestingly, Cowfish is known for having a variety of milkshakes, and you could order one of these as your dessert with the dining package. I decided to go with The Nutty Cow (chocolate ice cream, NUTELLA®, cocoa powder, candied hazelnuts).

There were a lot of great sounding milkshake options, but I went with this one because I wanted something chocolate and I enjoy nutella. I will say it was just okay. It was also quite massive (I highly recommend splitting a shake unless you’re on a pre-paid meal plan or event like we were). But it was mostly just a chocolate milkshake. There was what I believe to be Nutella mousse on top, and then the rim had the cocoa powder and hazelnuts. But at the end of the day it was really just a chocolate milkshake. And it was good but not a great one – and at $13 I would want something a little more exciting. Since we had dessert included with our meal it wasn’t a big deal, but I only finished about ⅓ of this.

My friend had the Nutella Mousse (layers of Nutella® mousse, caramel, cookie pieces, whipped cream, candied hazelnuts).

I hear this was quite good, though I was honestly too full to even try a bite! Kristin felt the same. A good dessert but you don’t necessarily need one here if you’re doing appetizers and entrees!

I’ve had some really great food at Cowfish in Universal, and it’s a definitely a place worth returning. The menu is large and there are so many things to try that sound delicious and unique!

Have you been to Cowfish in Universal? What would you want to try here?