Moose and Gibson

Another new breakfast place that has opened up along Woolloongabba, joining the ranks of such breakfast giants as Pearl, Crosstown Eating House and Foxy Bean. I first found this place by checking out Urbanspoon's newest Brisbane food photos, when I saw an enticing picture of some potato and three cheese croquettes. Then I got really excited when I found that there was no bloggers than had posted anything about them yet. OFF WE GO.

I like their decorations

Jurgens Street is at the back of the main Logan Road/Antique District part of Woollongabba, so only a stones throw away from the cafes I just mentioned. Its a weird area, when we turned down the street we weren't sure if this was the right spot since it was so industrial looking with factories and hardware shops. It was only when I spotted all the hipsters on the wooden deck that I declared, MOOSE AND GIBSON AHOY!

Their opening times!

Its a very cool looking place. I really liked some of the features like the potted plants, the swing, the antler chandelier that I forgot to take a photo of!

This swing is alarming to sit on

Their water barrel

The other side of the sign.

We picked a table outside, or I did for the light haha. We pondered over the menu and I ordered the Mad Moose and Jubi went with the Bircher museli since she likes a lighter and sweeter option most of the time.

Their menu!

As usual, she ordered her usual of English Breakfast tea with honey and milk on the side. She was very happy to find that they got her a teapot and she could get a few cups out of it. It was very runny honey and she enjoyed splashing it on her muesli. I wasn't taken by any of the drink options and so declined a drink. They serve Two Seasons coffee here incidentally.

Tea!

Here is the aforementioned museli. Its a house made mix of goji berries, rolled oats, pepitas and flaked almonds, topped with orange segments, dried apricot chunks, thick yoghurt and finely julienned Granny Smith apple. Jubi really enjoyed her Bircher muesli, she waxed lyrical about the inclusion of goji berries, how the Granny smith apple was julienned and not say diced, sliced or grated and she liked the dried apricots because she was keen on them now. I startled her with the news that what separates bircher muesli from say a normal muesli is that its typically soaked overnight with a mix of different liquids like say, milk or apple juice. Towards the end, she dumped her leftover milk and honey over the remains of the muesli.

A mish mash of museli!

I ordered the Mad Moose! I pretty much always order the biggest breakfast on the menu because it has the greatest number of things to try of their staples. The Mad Moose consists of a choice of eggs, I picked scrambled, one three cheese potato croquette, garlic mushrooms, wilted spinach, roasted tomatoes, bacon, house baked beans, black pudding and toasted Turkish bread. In order of my preference, the tastiest thing was the potato croquette, it was super cheesy, golden brown crunchy and well seasoned. Then the black pudding, I've never had it before but it was rich, spicy and had a nubblely texture to it, I would order this as a main by itself if they could somehow make it, I like offal. The garlic mushrooms were good but I didn't detect any garlic, they were large flat mushroom that were cooked until blackened and shriveled, they had a very meaty texture.

The massive Mad Moose!

My middle point of excellence goes to the house baked beans, which was served warm in a rich tomato sauce that was subtly spicy too. The tomatoes were good considering I don't normally like them. The spinach was also good, it was very, very salty though and garlicky, I normally enjoy saltiness but I had to eat this with other things to balance out the flavour. The shortcut bacon was okay, I didn't find it particularly tasty despite my love of bacon. I know it sounds blasphemous and this is coming from a girl, who has eaten cold bacon before from a leftover breakfast that as I was eating it, the bacon was making me nauseous and I still continued eating it. This bacon was meh, it wasn't crunchy, the colour wasn't great and the fat wasn't rendered. The scrambled eggs were very creamy but they were just scrambled eggs, nothing else added to them, I thought they were very plain and I'm used to breakfast places adding a lot of cheese or herbs to them. Lastly, the Turkish was horrific, I have never had such bad Turkish bread before. Even the Turkish bread that you can get for like three dollars from the Gold Coast bakery is better than this, it has very small holes, was doughy and was bad. It just tasted like normal bread!

On coming home, I stalked online for every mention of them possible, finding out that it was named after the owners two horse dog style mastiffs, Moose and Gibson. They were lounging casually outside the restaurant when we went. They are very cute/sad dogs, with heavy jowly faces that turn from ecstatic dog joy at one minute and then droop into utter despondent sadness the other. They were very well behaved and spent most of their time lapping out of their big water bowl or knocking it over. One of the co-owners is a famous Queensland Reds player. The other co-owners also own Leaf Expresso. Also, horror of horrors, blog posts had begun appearing online, so that is why despite having going with Jubi the day before my post on Greek on Cav, this actually appeared later.

I also went there again with H., and L., the following week for breakfast before work. This time we did order drinks, flat white, cappuccino and a soy latte for myself, H., and L., respectively. I'm not normally a coffee drinker, so I instantly dumped two teaspoons of brown sugar into the mix, it was not bitter, had a nice rounded taste to it and a good aroma. H., and L., liked their coffees too and would've happily ordered another round, if anyone had asked us. H., was jealous that we got prettier coffee and she had the stock standard cocoa scattered cappuccino, while I was jealous of L.'s perfectly shaped pattern. The coffees came in a really small size, like think slightly larger than your average tea cup. That's what it felt like. Their takeaway small coffee is bigger, get that instead. Also they had bags of LAVAZZA COFFEE out, instead of their Two Seasons?

A flat white

Cappuccino

A perfect soy latte with a sip taken out

I ordered the three cheese croquette with house made chutney and cucumber and dill salad despite already having the croquette on my Mad Moose brekkie on my earlier visit. I was really out of ideas on what else to try, since I was only interested in the potted eggs as my alternative. I don't like sweet breakfasts, I'm generally a big eater and I've heard dodgy reviews of the quark eggs, pointing that out a bit as the dud part of the menu.

As earlier they were deliciously crunchy with their golden brown crust, soft mashed potato insides and much more noticeable gooey cheese strings erupting every time I took a slice off. The dill and cucumber yoghurt salad was light, tangy and had a lovely smell from dill, its my favourite herb haha. The tomato chutney wasn't particularly great I think, at least not on this day. I was really hungry so I finished my meal a lot sooner than everyone else did and was pity fed by L., and H., from their plates. I wasn't aware that I could get extra meats and things as a side, so next time I will keep that in mind, this plate would've gone really well with say, a breakfast sausage, some bacon or something to round out the flavours a bit more.

Needs more stuff

L., got the ham, cream cheese and spinach folded omelet with toasted bread. It also came with a little golden curl of butter sprinkled with good sea salt. I know because I ate Hanna's sea salt flakes. It was was a soft and creamy omelet, well seasoned with good colour, on the inside there wasn't much discernible cream cheese present although it did leak a lot of fluid towards the end, there was a lot of thin slices of ham and wilted spinach throughout the omelet.

That omelet was huge, no joke

Ahh the potted baked eggs with chorizo, olive, spinach and tomato sauce. H., had had her eyes on this for so long, either it was going to be really, really, really good or she would be disappointed bitterly as usual. Take note people, this is the first and only time H., has ever chosen a good dish. THE BEST DISH ON THE MENU. The olives were all black and pitted, a salty burst in the rich sauce. The chorizo was some of the best I've tasted with a good medium burn and that tasty hit of paprika and garlic. The tomato sauce was rich and chunky but I wanted it to be spicy but that's just personal. The ciabatta was great and they gave you six slices that were lightly toasted and just small enough to invoke the idea of toasted soldiers into your mind. I think the only actual downside were the eggs themselves, I prefer my baked eggs to have a gooey, poppable centre and you can definitely see that in all of the pictures of the baked eggs that they are cooked right through. Once again, a personal opinion.

It was utterly delicious and I was quite jealous of H., I really should have picked this the first time around and gone for the Mad Moose the second time around. Just an appearance wise thing, the board was quite heavy and took up a fair amount of space on the table, as did all the plates. It looks hard to carry being so heavy and hot as well, I think it'd be better if they had a little depression to slide the baked eggs tray into to allow it to rest nicely on the board and not for it to slide around. Occupational health and safety hooray!

Is beautiful no?

Then H., went there again with some of our workmates who all ordered potted eggs except for Mr M for Megababe who got the Mad Moose and complained that he should've gotten the potted eggs too. Like me, he loves offal.

I also know that Shishi, PeachGirl and HawkMan have all gone here for breakfast as well. Shishi ordered the baked eggs and noted that it was more liquidy than he expected and he'd have liked more bread with the meal. PeachGirl and HawkMan both enjoyed their pancakes reportedly.

Moose and Gibson.
Atmosphere:8, very cool hipster zone. I really like the decoration and little touches like having a different serving plate for each meal, the massive signs they have outside, their lovely chairs, swing set and chandelier.
Service: 6, hit and miss. One of the girls who served us the first time, an Asian lass, was great, happy, chatty and seemed like she was glad to be there, we had a good chat about massages. The other blonde girl who seated us was a bit clueless, she was milling around an awful lot. The second time we were briefly ignored by the two waiters there, before getting a table inside. A big beardy guy and another girl, although the Asian girl was working elsewhere. They seemed a bit new, being a bit hard to signal, not coming back midmeal to ask how things were as this is a great time to get a second round of drinks, they asked us for drinks as soon as we sat down and cleared plates readily enough.
Food: 8, from what I've eaten there, currently one of the best breakfasts in Brisbane if generally a bit on the pricier side. I would be very eager to revisit this place once they've finished work on their lunch menu. I think they have a good future ahead of them if they continue in this vein.