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| - I was a bit underwhelmed with my experience at the Olmsted Falls Moosehead Saloon. I just don't get what everyone else is raving about. "Some of the best food in Cleveland", really? Eat out much? Yeah, they have a patio that overlooks the woods. I'm not a patio guy. I prefer to eat indoors without insects buzzing around my plate and the wind blowing my napkin off the table every five minutes. And what's with the cat roaming around the patio while I'm trying to eat? Isn't there some sort of health code violation happening there? Alright, enough of that. Just so you don't think I'm a total curmudgeon, I did like the building. The whole converted firehouse thing is pretty cool. I'm not sure what was with the little plaid skirts and black leggings worn by the teenage server girls, but as far as uniforms go, not a terrible choice.
Now for the food. The Moosehead menu is quite expansive for a place of their ilk. The apps are basically your standard fried bar fare (o-rings, calamari, cheese sticks, wings), you've got about a dozen variations of salad, sandwiches, some larger entrees and a handful of vegan/gluten-free options. There are so many options my first thought was they couldn't possibly do any of them very well. Since we only ordered a few of them I really don't have the evidence to support this claim, though.
The story of our meal begins unassumingly enough with the munch skins, the Moosehead version of the classic potato skin app. I really don't have much to complain about here. Idaho potatoes, sliced in half, bacon and cheddar cheese, sour cream on the side. We got the small order which consisted of three halves. They were pretty tasty. The potatoes were fork tender and the melted cheese covered a rather sizable amount of diced bacon.
Next in the culinary progression came a cup of French onion soup. This was also rather tasty. Not overly salty like most versions I've had, the sweet onions were soft and there was plenty of cheese draped over the cup. My only gripe on this dish was the bread component. It had all but disintegrated into the soup leaving very little texture. Overall, not a bad rendition.
It was to be a salad night for the both of us. My wife opted for the salmon club (or so she thought) and I the house specialty "Autumn" salad (apparently held over due to popular demand). Now, if you're out of mixed greens you need to tell your patrons that you're out of mixed greens. Most of the salads listed on the menu, including the two we had, listed mixed greens as the base. We both received chopped Romaine.
The Autumn salad consisted of sliced granny smith apples, cranberries, blue cheese crumbles, toasted walnuts and a chicken breast breaded in sweet potatoes, fried and sliced all atop a bed of Romaine lettuce. The dressing I chose was the cranberry vinaigrette. Again, not bad. Everything appeared nice and fresh and the dressing was a good balance of sweet and tart, but it was awkward to eat given the large pieces and the chicken was dry and chewy.
My wife's salmon was grilled (although strangely devoid of grill marks and caramelization) and she had no complaints about the fish itself, where there was issue was with the salad she ordered and what she received. Expecting a Caesar salad as the menu states she instead received some sort of unlisted, hybrid salad with slices of unripened, tasteless tomato, anemic rings of grilled red onion, bacon bits olives and some wedges of roasted redskin potato. There were also two pieces of toasted white bread on the side. I've never seen a salad served with roasted potatoes and I'm not sure where the toast comes in, but the whole thing just fell short. It was sort of the BLT salad and sort of the salmon club. Either way, just so-so.
Yeah, they've got a nice patio. Sure, they're located in picturesque white bread Olmsted Falls. But I just wasn't enamored by the experience. Our server was pleasant and attentive enough (my iced tea was never empty), but it did take about 10 minutes before anyone even came over to our table after we were seated. Overall, a mediocre, forgettable dining experience that I doubt we will be repeating anytime soon.
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