“If a messy kitchen is a happy one, this one is delirious.”
How can you not like a café that has the chutzpah to post that above their kitchen?
How about, “The reason we’re not all here is because we’re not all there”? There is even a banner on a wall emblazoned with a single word: BACON! Add to that a pretty carefree approach to interior design, mainly the abundant use of primary colors (especially blue) and enough visual clutter to make you wonder where Waldo is, you pretty much have an idea what it’s like in the Blue Moose Café. Open only for breakfast and lunch, it’s secluded in the back part of Haines Street in the middle of Port Townsend’s Boat Haven shipyard. If I hadn’t found out about it on TripAdvisor, I might never have discovered it on my own.
The interior isn’t large. Some tables are squished almost right up against one another. Each table has its own bottles of catsup, Tabasco sauce and Huy Fong rooster sauce, not to mention a jar of killer housemade apricot jam. You can also sit at the counter on one of four stools. The entire floor is sealed concrete. Coffee is supplied by Port Townsend’s popular Sunrise Coffee, which itself has a building just down the street.
But funky decor is not what makes Blue Moose. It’s the food. Beyond the tongue-in-cheek names for some menu items (like This Ain’t No Atkins’ Special or Last Night I was Dreaming About Elvis), the basics are here: eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes, corned beef hash (“No can openin’ here!”), omelettes, biscuits ‘n gravy, oatmeal, etc. But, there are also interesting twists on classics, such as Smokin’ Joe (a Joe’s special with smoked salmon instead of ground beef) or a french toast made with housemade brioche and dipped in vanilla custard, served with honey-pecan butter. Many items appear to be originals, the most popular of which are the scooters, lightly grilled flour tortillas filled with various stuffings, reminiscent of burritos.
Deciding what we wanted was a chore, a happy one, to be sure. It was at least ten minutes after we were handed the menus that we finally decided.
Moose bagel features a toasted Bob’s bagel (also of Port Townsend), your choice of three kinds. My wife picked the everything, a savory bagel studded with poppy and sesame seeds. She also opted for a vegetarian sausage (instead of ham, bacon or sausage) that was made mostly of pecans, which was quite flavorful. Scrambled eggs and cheddar completed the fillings, a very good breakfast sandwich (☆☆☆).
My scooter was filled with scrambled eggs, chorizo and cheddar and jack cheeses, and topped with salsa, sour cream and a darn good cilantro-chile sauce. Instead of the standard black beans, I substituted potatoes. The black beans might’ve worked better because the potatoes were mealy, exacerbated by steaming in the tortilla wrap. Overall, a good menu (☆☆½) item.
The waitresses were all extremely friendly and accommodating—substituting the potatoes for the beans, giving me extra cilantro sauce when requested, ever filling up our coffee cups without our asking. A pretty happy bunch, they obviously like working here. Blue Moose’s seclusion well outside the historic district doesn’t keep customers from coming, however. Even if today were a Saturday morning, I get the feeling it’s busy all the time. This is one place we’ll be sure to have breakfast every time we visit Port Townsend.
| Blue Moose Café 311 Haines Pl, #B Port Townsend, WA 360.385.7339 |
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zoomeboshi 
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