We dined at Moro on March 12, and it was a wonderful experience! Prior to joining Yelp I'd not heard a peep about Moro - but after reading some promising reviews I knew I HAD to visit. This is old-school dining at it's finest: lots of retro dishes on the menu, served up with tons of charm (so don't expect anything avant-garde or fusiony).
The 8 of us arrived at Moro from Ann Arbor around 7 p.m. I had read on the website that they do not take reservations, but I guess this isn't exactly true - larger groups can do a "call ahead" for seating. Either way, we were promptly seated. Our server was a delightful man who'd been working at Moro for 25 years - and it showed. He was practically psychic in guessing what we needed.
For soup we were split between clam chowder, swiss onion, and the minestrone. The chowder was fantastic, lots of clams, rich, satisfying, my husband loved the minestrone - practically licking the bowl clean, and the rest of the table had the swiss onion...which after trying it, was the best onion soup I've ever had...hands down.
Salad was composed tableside, and was a nice blend of butter and romaine lettuce, chickpeas, tomato, egg, and oil/vinegar. Mmmm.
Here's what was ordered by the group:
- Spaghetti and Meatballs: the sauce was a long, slow-cooked tomato sauce redolent of browned-butter, onion, and basil. Fantastic. Meatballs were herby and delicate.
- Veal Casalinga: Veal with proscuitto, herbs, tomato, butter. All dishes came with these savory garlic-parmesan broad beans and a glazed potato. I loved the beans, but later wished I'd have ordered a pasta side instead of the potato.
- "House" Veal: Tableside presentation. Two sauces, cream and tomato based, liberally flamed with cognac - likely the best dish at the table.
- Veal Marsala: Tender veal with tomato, pepper, onion. Not the most tradtional presentation, but very flavorful.
- Veal Picata: Delicious lemon-butter sauce, simple and scrumptious.
- Beef with Marsala and Mushrooms: Heartier version of the veal marsala.
- Antipasi for 2 (more like Antipasti for 4/6 it was so huge!) Large platter of marinated mushrooms, boiled-beef in oil and vinegar, olives, herbed feta, and a side plate of salami with parmesan cheese. Delicious~
- Bananas Foster/Tableside - Warm, buttery bananas flamed with rum over vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm
- Cherries Jubilee: brandied cherries, with butter, brown sugar, and a wonderful presentation tableside: the server flames a spiral-cut orange peel with brandy...releasing all the volatile oils into the sauce. The cherries are then served with vanilla icecream, and a rich pound-cake. Seriously wonderful, and fun to watch.
The table ordered 3 excellent bottles of wine (I recommend red zinfandel or Pinot with most of the dishes...one was a cabernet that did not go well with some of the delicate flavors), and I had 2 cosmos - the cosmos were fantastic...sweetly/tart, no funny hot-pink food coloring, just a GOOD solid, cocktail.
We'll most certainly be back. Almost everyone had enough leftovers for another full meal. The only thing that will make Moro even more awesome is when they go smoke-free in early May. Overall our bill came to $540 ($650 with tip...the wine drinkers were responsible for 1/3 of the bill...) but it was an extremely enjoyable 3 hours of bacchenalian bliss. read more