Saturday, March 26, 2011

Señor Moose in Seattle: good, less Europeanized, Mexican food

Señor Moose is quickly becoming one of my favorites around here. A decently priced small place in a corner of Ballard, it serves the sort of Mexican food that you'll never find in one of the more commercial mainstream Mexican restaurants. Instead, what you get are regional specialties where the indigenous influence is high and the Spanish and general European influence is much less, varying of course dish by dish. Because of this, there are lots of tasty items on the menu that don't fit any recognizable categories, such as the Machaca Beef with Eggs, that's a stir fry of shredded stewed beef with scrambled eggs and spices that you'd never think would actually have egg in it if you weren't told. Other dishes include salads that are creations into themselves that don't resemble European salads so much as bowls of beans, shredded lettuce, miscellaneous vegetables, and a choice of meat. On one occasion I had a soup like dish that consisted of potatoes and chicken and spices boiled in a heavy cream sauce with cheese added, that looked and tasted more like something you'd find at a Thai restaurant than something you'd find in a Mexican restaurant. That's a compliment, especially in an area of the country that has been served by cheap knock offs of Mexican food for a long while, like the abysmal fast food restaurant "Taco Time", that puts thing in wraps, adds salsa to it, and calls it Mexican. Their "Mexican Fries", for instance, are Tater Tots with salsa on the side.

Into this mix Senõr Moose comes, providing real Mexican food without boutique prices--another rarity.

Check it out.

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