Moose’s

Yes my backlog is deep. I just looked at my SF booknarks and it was time to clear the queue.
before there was Park Tavern, Joey and Eddie’s, there was Moose’s. one of the better more popular fine dining places in North Beach if not most of SF back in the day. Large space, elegant décor, a great source of all walks of society and a piano player. You just dont see places like this anymore. RIP

3.5 stars — went there for a late brunch, not too crowded and the musician was just wrapping up — we did get to enjoy couple songs before he packed up and he was very good.
It was a pretty simple menu so didn’t take long to decide, especially when there are oysters on the menu. The nice touch was a plate of 4 mini muffins that were still warm to touch — yummy.
We ordered a dozen oysters to start and a glass of champagne w/​promegranate juice, that was very tasty. The burger was made just right — very tasty. Hubby had the omelet, it was ok. Saved room for dessert — after all, the Bananas Foster Bread Pudding sounded too good to pass up, right? Well, that was a disappointment and an end to a pretty good brunch. Overall, it’s good but not great — expect just a little more/​better based on the price.
Service was pretty good, friendly and attentive.
Another couple was just a few tables away, the woman is either very picky or… she also ordered the burger. But she had it sent back 3 times? The thing is, she ate some and most of the fries on each plate before sending back, that to me is very tacky. I just couldn’t understand what or how she ordered the burger… mine was perfectly cooked to medium rare per request.

Regrettably, I missed out on the old Moose’s but not to worry, the new one leaves very little to be desired! We had an 8:15 reservation but were not seated until 8:30 — not something most restaurants would sweat over and, truth be told, not something we really noticed ourselves. But when we were seated, our waiter apologized profusely and presented us with two flutes of very decent champagne.
Wine was uncorked and we were brought a gorgeous platter of freshly baked country bread on a hot stone with olive oil, butter, and smoked salt on the side. Tasty!
The foie gras was just a touch overcooked and was accompanied by too many sauces but tasty nevertheless. My friend’s tuna and salmon tartare was simple and elegant but the fish was of only average quality (the salmon was far superior to the tuna, we thought) and the citrus sauce was too overpowering. Luckily, it was served separately and we could control how much or how little to add to the dish.
The entrees were a definite step up. My friend’s ribeye was cooked and seasoned perfectly and the sparse accompaniments of creamy potato croquettes and bitter greens framed the protein beautifully. My duck confit was likewise perfect in execution — crunchy skin surrounding still juicy and flavorful meat. However, the root vegetables that accompanied the meat were underseasoned and felt completely extraneous to the dish’s composition.
Small complaints — our waiter was not as attentive as we would have liked, the bar is not stocked as well as those of other restaurants in this price range, and the wine markups are eye-​watering, although the list itself is short and sweet. I feel that the chef has a deft touch in dealing with proteins but at times overreaches with the sides and sauces. Just a bit more restraint could elevate his already remarkable cooking.

You really can’t go wrong here. Fantastic food, whether order steak, seafood or chicken, the desserts are great. Wine list is fab and they have valet parking. It’s also in the heart of Northbeach so the location is great.
Book ahead and have reservations but you can eat/​order at the bar as well.

Very upscale, and very delicious. Although I was sitting at a table of quite pretentious people, I wasn’t going to let that phase me. I kept my composure and drank like a FISH! MMMM VINO!!!
I will go there again someday…

Delicious food, courteous service, warm ambience, good drinks. And with its view of Washington Square, it still has the cozy feeling of a neighborhood restaurant. And yet, it’s Moose’s!
Try the oysters!

Excellent food and wine and great jazz. My boyfriend and I went there for his birthday. The service was very good and the chef gave us some complimentary apps.

I don’t get the whole Moose head sign on this restaraunt. Yes, I know it’s the name of the joint, but all the times I walked by it, I thought it was just a sports bar and not a slightly upscale restaraunt. The jackass that I came here with had his panties in a bunch to have an early dinner (who the hell eats at 6pm anymore?) so I don’t think I got a true taste of the atmosphere, but from what I have heard it’s never ultra crowded. The service was fine. Our server wasn’t that knowledgable about wines (and neither was the putz that I was with) but the server tried and we selected a good bottle of Pinot. My Caeser was served with pieces of anchovies (scales and all) that slightly grossed me out, but was decent. My entrée was delicious and I scarfed it, but it didn’t really knock my socks off. Also tried dessert, Bananas Foster, but it was a little heavy handed with spices.
Not real likely to return here, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Now, I can’t really explain why this is only getting four stars… maybe it’s because I didn’t feel any real personality from the place?
I sat outside and had brunch on a beautiful saturday.
had a great view of the park… the staff was very friendly.
the eggs bennie was redonk. that’s right, I’m taking brunch back.
anyway…overall, it was a good experience. would I go back? sure.
I’m just not sure where they’re going with the place. I’ve been to quite a few places like this. they open up and they don’t seem to have any direction. they just throw a bunch of white linens and dark wood around and hope for the best. I hope this place works it out and finds a way.
again, the food was delicious. I just didn’t get much of a ‘feeling’, ya know?

Like much of the reviews of Moose’s, I have to say my experience of Moose’s was solid. Meaning?
The food was great but not memorable. The staff is polite but not spectacular and the décor is … nice but not standout-​ish. Normal, straightforward dishes without the slightest bit of flair, but always done right.
You want steak cooked to perfection? Go here.
You want a good Caesar salad? Go here.
You want a grilled fish with a side of mango salsa and a terriyaki glaze with petite greens and insert-unique-item-that-is-most-likely-never-heard-of-in-Moose’s-kitchen? Umm. you might want to go somwhere else.
So, to sum up: I’m not underwhelmed by my expectations of this place nor am I overwhelmed by how great it is. I guess I’m just. whelmed?
The only part of the meal that I specifically remembered was the coffee, which they get from Caffe Roma there in North Beach. Mmmm. Now I go to this coffee place whenever I’m in North Beach. So, yay for that!

Yep, another dine about town success story!
My fiancé and I had a lovely time here at Moose’s, partly because we ordered this amazing Gwertz with mass amounts of residual sugar. But overall, I was glad to have dined here, especially for $ 31/​pp.
Wine list, quite extensive
Excellent range of cocktails
Fun live piano and bass
friendly waitress
Salad was fresh and tasty
Hanger Steak was quite tasty, potatos were amazing
Chocolate dessert thing was very delectable
Crème brûlée was not shared by me because my fiancé ate it all
I only took off one star because of the atmosphere. While, again, they had friendly staff and music, it somehow has that country club sort of vibe, so much so that my fiancé bet me $ 5 we’d be the youngest ones there. It was close, then I spotted a kid with some older folks…
that reminds me, I want my $ 5 bucks.

So I am the 2^nd part of the 9 busy people that came together for a DAT dinner. I won’t go into much details of it since Hiromi N did a good job going over about the beginning part of our dinner. So I will go ahead with the food.
I also order the mushroom cappacino and that was pretty good. I am a huge fan of mushroom and thought the soup was done well, but the portion of the soup is tiny. I was expecting more. I also had the Niman Ranch hanger steak a la pizzaiola, though I ask for mines medium rare, it came out to more of a medium. So I had to switch off plates with my firend. Finally the torte… though good it wasn’t a torte. It was more like a lava cake than a torte.
All in all, great time with friends, service good but food a bit underwhelming. But most likely go back for a 2^nd try.

Thank goodness for the San Francisco Dine About Town promotion, otherwise, I would never get the opportunity to have mini reunions with one set of my acquaintances. One year, we ended up at Roy’s and this year we congregated around a long table at Moose’s.
The food was solid. The hostess and waitress were very nice. In fact, the hostess offered to take our photo to memorialize the fact that we actually managed to coordinate the calendars of 9 VERY BUSY people. The waitress offered me a free taste of wine so that I could make an informed decision to order a whole bottle of it. Plus, she did a great job of actually presenting and serving the wine. Of course, she did accidentally spill my friend’s Kamikaze (HOW APROPOS!), the remainder of which committed suicide right in front of my place setting. As appropriate, she provided him with a new drink and refreshed my place setting and was extremely apologetic. Of course, by that time, we were gulping down our Cabernet Sauvignon and were laughing it off. I was pleased that she was so attentive and overall the service aimed for 5 stars.
Yet, the food, while solidly prepared, didn’t wow me. To start, I chose the Wild Mushroom Cappucino. The white truffle foam, though a nice visual and conceptual touch, was quite odd tasting. The creamy mushroom soup underneath was thick, creamy and allowed the flavors of the mushroom to rise above all the cream. For my main entrée, I went with the Niman Ranch Hanger Steak a la Pizzaiola. It was good, but not mouth-​watering. I think that the flavoring was quite bland and my steak was prepared medium as opposed to the medium rare that I had ordered. The marscapone twice baked potato made up for the cooking faux pas, though.
To finish, many members of the table, including myself selected the warm chocolate torte. It was luxurious and more HOT than «warm». Plus, in my non-​expert opinion, the dessert was more of a souflee than actual torte. Sadly, it was a bit too rich for my palate and I happily pawned it off to my boyfriend. At the end of the night, I was left wishing that I had ordered the crème brûlée. Hmmm…

Very good food, though the broccoli soup was unexciting. Pecan crème caramel dessert was astoundingly good. Great old-​school fancy restaurant atmosphere including a piano-​based jazz combo, big chandliers, etc. Very friendly, helpful waitstaff. Pork shoulder and bacon & potato-​wrapped Hake were alo highlights.
Had to re-​review to drop my rating, because they changed ownership, and no longer have no corkage fees on Tuesday, though their website still says that they do. Further, they refuse to honor the fact that the website says they have no corkage fees on Tuesday. (see
)
I’m rather anti-​false advertising, and this is a piss-​poor example of the practice (and an easy thing to fix).

Oh Mooses, What can I say about you. When I first moved to the city I used to love sitting at the bar at the kitchen to watch the ballet in the back of the house. But I came back for Christmas eve dinner I thought it would be a great spot for a celebration so I called after the Niner game and the hostess «squeezed me in» So I went with my gal and had a drink, ran into another few friends had a few drinks and added them to our table.
So far so good, ordered a bottle of wine, a not inexpensive Zin and we all skipped salads and apps and ordered just meals. Waiter definitely gave us the disappointed look and was intent on pushing the lamb. Wine came and it was not good, I let it breath asked my other guests if they agreed they did. So I sent it back, the waiter gave me a look that made me think I had a third eye, he took it to the sommelier and they discussed.
The waiter came back with another bottle opened it without asking if I wanted it and gave me a rude remark like it looks like we are having a two for one special. You know what F U I do not want another bottle. Just because it tastes the same does not mean it is not tainted.
Anyway the food was ok, portions were generous but the fish was way overcooked and the lamb under spiced. Then the waiter picked up the food well before the last person was done eating, who does this? The whole atmosphere felt rushed, the waiter was rude, and the evening was not impressive. When I am dinning with people in the food service industry I expect good service, and am disappointed when I suggest a place and it lets me down. Mooses used to be one of my Fav’s what a disappointment.

Eh — portions are so tiny and the service is so slow. I do like the food, but I’m hungry again 30 minutes later. Good bar and enjoy the music, but that’s not enough to offset the problems listed above, nor justify the prices.
I know Ed Moose no longer owns the restaurant, but when he still owned it I knew some people who worked there. In an attempt to keep prices down, instead of giving the employees the usual family style meal at lunch time, they would feed them frozen burritos and corn dogs! Nice touch!

Oboy, another old school legend-​tution, on Washington Square in North Beach.
The vast, medium to expensive menu of fish, pastas, soups — things like lamb loin, squab, black truffle flan, pan seared duck, hamachi tartare — looks exciting but the food comes out uneventful.
A uniformed valet will park your car, but if you’re fast on the u-​turn there’s a certain parking space magic around here. The place gets packed with born-​in-​San-​Franciscans, ranging in age from have kids in college to great granddaughter’s graduation, who get surprisingly rowdy. It’s dramatic, impressive without being ostentatious, and has some cleverly sly artwork, photographs, and memorabilia. Flower displays are huge.
Later into the night crowds gather around the piano to catch up – don’t stare but there are well-​known filmmakers and real estate developers here, politicians and socialites, slapping each other on the back and addressing the amazingly talented jazz musicians by first name. You don’t know them because they’re older, don’t do clubs you or I would go to, and aren’t on myspace. Bartenders are dignified but not stuffy, pouring righteous martinis.
If you come here expecting a fine meal at a reasonable price you’ll be severely disappointed; if you come here to get in touch with the casual gentility of San Francisco’s past, a boisterous elegance that survived gold rush, depression, war, and summer of love before it was killed by globalization and the dot com, you can have a rooting tooting fine time here.

We went to Moose’s for dinner (sans reservations) on a Friday night, though we had no idea if we could get in… gotta love the last minute-​ness of our friends… who at the same time, refuse to go to a place *not* mentioned in the Zagat guide.
Surprisingly, we were seated immediately– at first, to a window seat overlooking washington square– which was nice, but we noticed the cold tile floors– and we asked to be reseated and were graciously guided towards the back, which seeme cozier and less ‘kitchen-​floor’ like. (To each his/​her own.)
The ambience: Others are right, the piano bar is swanky-​like but at the same time they were showing a baseball game on a few of their plasma screens, so not all that swanky, imho. The neon sign does
not lend itself to the dress code of the night, and the huge mannequin of Mr Moose sitting, which hovers over you as you dine kind of reminded me of those ‘shooting gallery’ mannequins from amusement parks.
The food: I can’t speak for every day, since the server assured us that the menu changes daily depending on what the chef finds at the market that morning. We shared a few of the pasta dishes (pictured) and though the mushroom one was a hit, the pea/​corn/​pasta combination tasted waaay to salty for anyone’s palate. Not sure what happened there. We all chose various fish entrees as our main course, and mine (pictured) was flaky and perfectly cooked, with these fantastic cubes of potatoes underneath. (I’ll have to try that at home!)
The noise level: Kinda loud. We had normal ‘inside voices’ going on at our table but a few louder tables off to the side, so we found ourselves competing. I can’t say this is necessarily a ‘romantic’ spot.
The service: I felt like our server was a little bit ‘too’ enthused to be working there, but overall, he was helpful, considering the fact that the menu itself has very little description of what the meal actually *is* so if you are with a group like mine, you end up with a LOT of questions. Drama was barely averted when the green sauce under one of the dishes (not pictured) was feared to be Pesto (pine nut allergy possibility), but turns out, no pine nuts were used in the making of our meals. Phew.
Oh, and at the end, they brought us a little plate full of yummy sweet things, but it was strange. Since there were 4 of us you would think they would give us 4 of each, or something like that, but it was random. We only got one chocolate truffle for the entire table, and had to ro sham bo for it.
Just kiddin. (about the ro sham bo part)

Men: Are you wearing a black sports jacket, have white hair, a fantastic tan, and drive a sports car?
Women: Have you had numerous facelifts, consider fur a viable clothing option, and are always driven around a sports car?
Then Moose’s is the restaurant for you.
For everybody else, skip this joint until weekend brunch, where it actually is a wonderful alternative to (the Line of) Mama’s across the street. A classy, lazy sort of brunch that almost shames you into ordering a $ 7 mimosa. Complimentary hot chocolate shots must be mentioned, as well as the delicious and decently priced dishes.

Great Happy Hour, half price wine and beer. Median patron age seems to be around 50, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Update:
Honestly, the brunch is as good or better than Mama’s across the street. They started us off with some complimentary crumb cake that was nice and moist. Follow that with some amazing Salmon bruschetta (which was outrageously fresh) and end with the Crab scramble (with asparagus and avacado). Wash it down with some spicy bloody marys…