Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Moose's Tooth Brew Pub and Pizzaria

Ever since he moved up here, Mr. Eating Alaska has been hearing from his coworkers that the Moose's Tooth has the best pizza in Alaska, and also that it is not unusual to wait 45 minutes for a table. Indeed, every time he drives past the place - lunch, dinner, weekdays, weekends - the parking lot is overflowing and a line snakes out into the overflowing parking lot. However, we had a mission in midtown this past Saturday, and drove by just on a chance. As it was about 15 minutes before lunchtime opening, there were only a few people waiting to get in, so we joined the gathering throng.
It is an agreeably funky place with an overwhelming decor theme is "wood" with strong overtones of moose. The menu is pretty much in line with the general upscale pizzaria theme. As you might expect for a brew pub, there are a lot of beer options, and quite a few wine choices as well. However, we did not get into the beers, as though the sun was over the yardarm somewhere, where we were it was only noon.

We had an incredibly delicious appetizer, roasted garlic. It is, as you would expect, a head of roasted garlic which is served with some bread, chopped tomatoes, oil and garlic, and gorgonzola-basil spread which was perfect with the garlic. There are other appetizers on the menu that we intend to try in the future, but I don't know how we are going to pass up that garlic. For an entree, we split a 5 cheese pizza, which was also very, very good. For those of you playing along at home, the cheeses are mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, gruyere, and (yet more) gorgonzola. For the less adventurous, you can eliminate the gorgonzola and/or gruyere. We thought the last two cheeses gave it a nifty tanginess that really made it stand out.

I would also like to say a word about their home-brewed cream soda. That word is YUM! I have been a cream soda fan since childhood, as I grew up with the A-Treat version. (A-Treat is a local soda company based in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. Along with standard colas, they make odd sodas like Pineapple, Punch, and grapefruit. I dearly love A-Treat sodas. But anyway, I digress.) Moose's Tooth's version is very rich and has just the right level of sweetness. If their beer is anything like as good as this soda is, you will be reading about it in the future.

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