Mouthful of Moscow

Eateries that are a must in Moscow

Claire Whitley | Crumbs

Moscow is known as the Heart of the Arts. There are local pubs and coffeehouses that offer live music, there are murals on buildings, there are shops that let customers paint and create their own pottery and there are local restaurants.

While it may be a stretch to say that people in Moscow will experience the best food of their lives, there are several restaurants that are great and some restaurants that are must visits. Start with breakfast at the Breakfast Club, wander around town for a while before picking a bagel from the Moscow Bagel and Deli and then head back towards campus, stopping at Gambino’s for dinner.

Breakfast Club

Claire Whitley | Crumbs
The Breakfast Club offers many options for breakfast and lunch such as the Kitchen Sink Skillet

The Breakfast Club is always packed, as many breakfast places in Moscow are. The opinion editor and I visited it during the middle of the week in the summer. It was still busy and took almost half an hour to get our meal. That just goes to show, with or without students, the place is hopping.

For patrons who want to have a sweet breakfast, one of the best dishes is the huckleberry French toast. They fry up the house specialty huckleberry zucchini bread and top it with huckleberry syrup and powdered sugar. To balance it out, I suggest ordering some sausage links or a side of bacon. The sweet and salty will be a nice match.

Another signature dish at the club is cinnamon roll pancakes. While I have yet to try them, thanks cavities, a roommate of mine had them and thought they were really good. Instead of syrup, the cakes are served with icing like a cinnamon roll.

It isn’t just about sweets though. They offer skillets, omelets, eggs and bacon, chicken fried steak and much more. There are also lunch options for those who visit in the afternoon, as the club is open until 2 p.m.

Moscow Bagel and Deli

Late night walks during my freshman year often brought me to the Moscow Bagel Shop.

The little shop downtown is hard to spot. It’s tucked away between the Prichard Art Gallery and Café Artista. The green awning is the only part that stands out until about 1 a.m., when it suddenly becomes difficult to miss.

The bagel shop is a neat little spot with the best food for travelers. Customers can walk in, order a bagel and be out within 15 minutes. It’s not as fast as McDonald’s, and not as cheap, but the food is amazing.

One of the things separating the bagel shop from other sandwich or bagel places is the fact that they steam their bagels. Once you order your preferred sandwich, they build it and place it on a steamer. Deft hands fold it up into an aluminum foil package and customers are on their way.

There are 93 bagel sandwiches, not including secret menu items, build it yourself bagels and extra options such as soup and cookies. The names are what make the bagels even better. There is one called “The Donkey Punch,” another is “The Clayboy” and still another is the “Kamikaze.” People often walk into the shop and are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices there are on the menu.

If I had the money, I would make it my goal to try every bagel they offer on the menu. It would take at least three months to eat one every day, but I would do it. I have tried Donkey Punch, the After-Burner, the Firz and the Babyface. I have probably tried others as well, since I have risked the Lottery, an option that allows the people behind the counter to make your bagel, once or twice.

Gambinos

Claire Whitley | Crumbs
The Magnificent Mile and Michigan Ave. pizzas are just two types offered at Gambinos.

At first, I thought Gambino’s was an Italian restaurant. It has all the pasta makings of it and a rather Italian sounding name. But it also has Chicago-style pizza. And let me share something with you: it is really good pizza.

It has something for everyone. There are calzones, thin crust pizza, stuffed pizza and something called a Chicago Pot Pie. They have normal pizza like cheese, Hawaiian, veggie, chicken bacon ranch and so on. But they also have a pizza called Wrigley, after the Chicago Cubs home stadium, which has the makings of a ball park hot dog on it. Then there is the Gambino, a meat lover pizza with mushrooms and olives, and the Soldier Field, an all meat and melty-cheese combination named for the home stadium of the Chicago Bears.

One of the fun aspects of Gambino’s is the sign. They have a cool fedora topping their name. It gives off that kind of Mafioso kind of flare. I feel like some Chicago suit is going to walk in and ask if we have seen the leader of a crime family. Not because the place is sketchy, but because I have an overzealous imagination when it comes to ‘50s/’60s mafia.

Claire Whitley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Cewhitley24