Eats to Go: Full Moon Café Deli-Bakery Restaurant
Douglas Miller
Full Moon Café
Tasty and portable. The pastries ordered “to go” received high marks from our taste testers.
My dad and brother have breakfast together nearly every Saturday morning. They’re always in search of breakfast spots in the valley. When I visited Full Moon Café for lunch one day and found that they served breakfast and were only a couple of miles from Dad’s house, I was excited for them. Little did I know that they had already discovered Full Moon Café and eaten several breakfasts there.
Janette, a foodie coworker, already knew about them as well. She stated that they had the best bagels outside of New York.
Sensing that I already had a potential winner on my hands, I visited at lunchtime and sampled a delicious salad. On Full Moon’s menu, they offer a “build your own salad” section. The mixed green base can be topped with a choice of two meats, three small tastier side items such as cucumber, mushroom, and artichoke or olive salads. I loved the fact that the foundation for the salad was a bed of dark mixed greens and not iceberg lettuce. I was a little disappointed, though, when I asked what dressings were offered and I was pointed toward a bin of Kraft salad dressing bottles.
For the second meal, I enjoyed a breakfast of a Western omelet with a side of hashbowns that were more like what I call home fries, which was just fine with me.
As for the to-go part, I got one of almost every baked good available. I say “almost” because I didn’t get one of every single bagel since there were several varieties that seemed similar, but I did grab two of them and one of each of the pastries. I took them back to the office as a late breakfast for our art and editorial department. Knowing that the food was coming fresh from a bakery had them circling like vultures as I unpacked the delectable goods. The one condition I placed on the free goodies – each taster had to tell me what he or she thought of every item sampled. This wasn’t a problem since there is no shortage of opinions about food in this office.
One of my volunteer tasters raved about the apple pastry.
“It’s a far cry from apple desserts that manage to be both overly sweet and boring at the same time,” she said. “There’s a spice in there that gives a nice, very autumny, kind of dark flavor. I feel like I’m describing wine.”
Another happy dessert-eater had a different favorite.
“I thought the blueberry muffin was very moist,” she said. “The blueberries were fresh, and it was finger licking good – literally. I had blueberry juice on my fingers. That is a first for me – licking my fingers from eating a blueberry
muffin.”
One of my guinea pigs was inspired enough to write poetry after he tasted the cream cheese croissant.
“The flaky light croissant, now that put me into flight,” he said. “And oh what a ride, when my teeth hit that cream cheese filled inside.”
While I didn’t feel the need to write any poetry, I personally was most enamored with the chocolate chip muffin. There were plenty of chocolate chips that were a bit soft and slightly melted, probably because the muffins had come out of the oven so recently. There’s something to be said for extremely fresh pastries. Packaged, mass-produced items simply cannot compete.
Full Moon Café Deli-Bakery Restaurant. 4520 Brambleton Avenue.
725-1508. Monday – Friday 7a.m. – 5 p.m., Saturday 7 a.m. – 2 p.m