El Moose — Restaurant in Seattle

My boyfriend and I arrived to a packed restaurant on a Saturday night. We went into the bar to wait for a table. We ordered Margaritas after learning that they won't make Mojitos "because Mojitos are Cuban and this is a Mexican restaurant" and immediately regretted our choice! Terrible Margaritas! We were told that they make their own sweet/sour mix which is definitely more sour than sweet and completely tasteless. No citrus in spite of testimony to fresh squeezed limes. We ordered top shelf tequila, so that was not the problem. We decided to endure them - and wait for a table. We ordered guacamole, salsa and chips - and watched other folks receive an assortment of salsas with their guacamole where ours arrived sans salsa- just chips and guacamole. Our table was ready so we were sat, and greeted by our waitress who promptly left without any acknowledgement or offering to take our orders. The place was very busy - customers walking up to put their own names on the Hostess list- lots of running around by staff. We had discovered very little Vegetarian options on the menu when we looked at it in the Bar. Our Bartender had pointed to a few options that were made with the same ingredients, just different sauces and arrangements of the vegetables made up the "different" dishes. Our waitress, when she finally arrived to take our order- pointed us to the Suize Enchiladas which arrived with cold Cojito cheese inside the enchiladas. I asked our waitress about this (they were terrible!) and she said that ideally the cheese would be melted in the enchiladas because of the sauce. She offered to warm them up and we declined as we had waited so long already and were on our way to a show. COld enchiladas? For $12.95? The other dish of sautéed Poblano chilis and mushrooms was just ok. The black beans were great - and the guacamole and chips. Everything else was not worth the money or the terrible stomache aches that we both went to bed with later on that evening. The service was frantic, distracted and shorthanded. The food AND drinks were awful. If you are Vegetarian, do NOT waste your time or...

Hit Or Miss Food; Awful Service

This place used to be a lot better. It's ridiculously overpriced for a lot of things (nearly everything is $14), but at least the entrée portions are fair.

However, large portions matter less to me than quality.

The carnitas often tastes refrigerated and lacks proper marbling, leaving the meat somewhat dry and not as creamy as one expects from the dish. It tastes like leftovers. The Carnitas Plate allows for about six tacos worth of meat, but the toppings are limited and offered in small quantities. Some of my pork tasted old and some of it was noticeably more fresh. Overall, poor quality control with protein.

They do achieve a nice char on their meat, but the chunks are simply too small, which contributes to the dryness. Carnitas should be chunks of fatty pork shoulder, chopped like stew meat, and braised in salted water or lard. It should be crispy and creamy. This was minced, grilled bits of shoulder.

I found the torta to be a better experience, simply due to it being a fairly wet and messy sandwich to begin with. The pickled peppers were a bit overwhelming in quantity, but overall, a decent sandwich.

The service was abysmal until the owner saw me taking a picture of the plate and probably figured I was reviewing something; then, it went from a zero to about an eight in such an awkwardly obvious amount of time. Before that, it took over ten minutes to take our order (the place was dead), and we had to get up to ask for water and extra chips for the bowl of esquites (which only comes with three tiny chips and isn't as good as it used to be).

I'm not sure what happened to this place. It used to be incredible, years and years ago. I'd say...

This is one of the best Mexican restaurants in Seattle! The exterior gave me the impression it would be low-brow and classic Americanized Mexican food, but I was pleasantly surprised with the interior! There are two distinct areas: the bar/open kitchen and the dining. The bar / open kitchen area was nice. You could see the cooks and wait staff interacting and watch the food be prepared. The dining side had classic wood tables and was pretty standard. I ordered Horchata to drink, Chips & Salsa, Quesadilla, and Pollo de Mole. The horchata was good, but too sweet initially. Once the ice melted to water it down, it was good. The Chips were very good. Our waiter accidentally gave us guacamole (we weren't charged) and the guacamole was decent - it lacked salt to bring out the flavors. The salsa was OK. The small circular containers didn't make it the most convenient to eat the chips and I preferred the guacamole. The quesadilla was good. Tortillas tasted homemade and the mozzarella was good quality. Pollo de Mole was surprisingly good. The mole was sweet not spicy, which was unexpected but welcome. The flavors all blended together and it was well portioned. My first impression was the food was expensive, but after eating I believe the price is justified. The food was slow (20-30 mins) to come out, but once it arrived it was worth the wait. Overall, it was a solid restaurant and I recommend visiting...