Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill

So Texas You’ll Plotz

Click: Moonshine

Moonshine Bar & Grill is an intensely pleasant place; the interior having a homey atmosphere in the sense of resembling an actual home which happens to consist entirely of dining room, the patio spacious and airy.  There is a definite feel of special occasion about the place, of which J’s D. could tell you better than I whether it wears out with repeat visits.

We had with us a guest to whom I had not been introduced, but whose presence has already become known in some of The Dad’s reviews, that being a cell-phone sized camera with capacities that would have exploded my head back in the day, which is to say this entire paragraph has been spent on ‘this review has pictures’.

Here is one, of the Moonshine’s simple yet delight-filled menu:

The popcorn offers a deceptively light opening.

Note the important presence of popcorn on the table, which is brought free.  It has a light dusting of some sort of peppery spice and what appears to be real butter, and even as a blatant effort to entice one toward ordering more drinks, it’s a nice touch, just the thing to nibble while considering your order.

Since the menu is only partially readable in the picture, yet I’m about to discuss it as though you know what I’m talking about, here’s a link to the website’s copy.

For my personal tastes, this menu has one of the highest percentages I’ve ever seen of things I’d actually order, so deciding between them was a bit difficult, but on the other hand, a random dart-board method would work in a pinch. We started with an appetizer of Beer Batter Asparagus:

The dipping sauce is house buttermilk ranch, pink with paprika. It is delicious, and heavy.

Perhaps inevitably, including one that was, as Terry Pratchett would say, humorously shaped.  The asparagus was delicious, and cooked to just the right degree to be toothsome without being mushy, which can’t be all that easy to combine with the tempura-style preparation.  The beer battering, however, provided a note which would soon become a theme:  the simple fact is good asparagus in batter is a bit of a gilded lily, that is, the batter did not do much to enhance the asparagus, but did make it a somewhat heavier dish, the full significance of which will become apparent.

Following that, I made a random stab at the entree list and came up with the Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Charred Pineapple & Green Chile Salsa, and a side of Baked Macaroni,

The pork tenderloin. Note the salsa, and the brown sauce which is not very visible here. They are heavy.

while James’ Dad had the Horseradish Crusted Salmon with Lemon Dill Sauce and rather than a side, opted for a double helpin’ of vegetables, on account of he has a small computer telling him how may calories he may eat in a day.

And the salmon. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the lemon dill sauce is heavy.

At this point I want to reiterate that the food is excellent, the service friendly and prompt (by my only particular metric, which is that I didn’t have to wait for tea refills), and the atmosphere intangibly celebratory; because for both humorous and rhetorical value this review is inevitably going to dwell on the single substantial quibble — which is, itself, a quality hard to truly complain about in a restaurant.

I use the word ‘substantially’ quite deliberately here; to put it simply, Moonshine is not a place to go if you aren’t serious about eating, unless perhaps you intend rather to sit down and get serious about drinking.  The sauces are heavy, the vegetables are heavy with butter, the baked macaroni, for all that it comes in a small cup, is deliriously heavy with cheese, the asparagus is batter fried.

And the desserts…

The Fudge Stout Brownie with Malt Ball Ice Cream, as seen by a tiny person standing on the table.

…weigh five hundred pounds apiece.

The Peanut Butter Mousse Pie with Oreo Cookie Crust, imported exclusively from Brobdignag.

Neither of your humble reviewers were able to finish these chocolate masterpieces, which is not a statement lightly taken.  To be fair, the desserts are explicitly advertised as sized for sharing — indeed, the server warned Dr. Dad away from the Signature Skillet Apple Pie, as the serving is not a slice, but a pie (I also have to admire the sly tactic of slipping a combination dessert menu/comment card onto the table prior to bringing the check).  They might do well to consider making smaller portions for people who are explicitly ordering for one.

But again, it’s hard to fault a restaurant for being too filling.  It’s just not exactly a place for snackers or dieters; there are salads on the menu, but I’m willing to bet that the dressing is applied heavily, and it’s worth noting that one of the salads contains steak while another contains fried chicken.  The sinister part is simply that this very filling fare will tempt you powerfully to indulge enough to spend a long time semidormant afterward.

So come hungry, leave having not quite finished a dessert.

Five Lone Stars and a shot of white lightning in a Ball jar.