moonbowls — Restaurant in New York

Don’t even think about it. Unless you are seeking revenge on someone, in which case you should recommend they order delivery from this place.

Found this place as “(Expletive) Gluten” on DoorDash. I figured out that the business behind that name was moonbowls, and chose to order directly from them so they’d hopefully get more money.

The first two times I ordered from them were kinda rough: Food tasted OK, portions were quite small, and orders were 30 minutes late.

I was foolish enough to order a third time.

When the order was 15 minutes late I checked their app and saw that the food hadn’t been picked up. I texted their “concierge” service, which assured me that the food was just waiting to be picked up.

30 minutes later I texted again. Silence. Tried to call, but their phone number is just a complicated menu where all options lead you back to texting them.

At the 2-hour mark I texted then again, only to learn that the order still hadn’t been picked up. They tried to shift blame, saying that they made the food on time but that their “delivery partner” (read: Uber Eats) was at fault. Whatever.

I cut my losses and took the refund. Will never get that 2 hours back.

You’ve...

Glad to hear about Doordash Kitchens opening up in Downtown Brooklyn. It's centrally located and easily accessible by Metro lines. It has a clean seating area so you can just drop in. Other ghost kitchens concepts I've gone to in the past were true ghost kitchens so I like this flexibility. Plus the food is really good. 

On this trip, I was drawn to Moonbowl's not one but two vegan options, the Avocado Bulgogi and Sesame Surprise. Feeling adventurous, I went for the Bulgogi. I'm not a huge fan of Impossible "beef" (tastes too close to the real thing) and I've cooled on kale, but this bowl got me to boomerang back. So much flavor. It helps that the "beef" has been broken down into smaller pieces and the kale has been marinated in citrus. The stars though are the pickled Fresno chiles and charred peppers that added pops of acidity, tartness, spice, and sweetness to each bite. 

I spoke to the Assistant Manager and he dropped that they're looking to expand the selections and bring in a vegan and an Indian restaurant. I...

The only reason why we should trade our nice restaurants for a ghost kitchen is presumably efficiency. But in the case of this doordash location they're really missing on every front.

I made a simple order for One bowl 30 minutes ahead of time, and when I walked in 5 minutes after the app told me that the order was ready, the lady at the front was like.. "what??" Is if she's completely unaware that her job is to give people their orders. There are no large screens indicating the status of the orders to people waiting in line, and she doesn't even greet you with a simple "welcome to door dash can I please have the name on your order".

So we stand there waiting around for five more minutes without any indication of whether anyone is even searching for the order, finally it'd located and when I get home I see the basically filled half the bowl.

Definitely never ordering...