Crescent Moon Bakery

2339 Central Ave NE
Minneapolis, MN
612-782-0169
www.crescentmoonfoods.net

Category: Afghani, Middle-Eastern

Rating (Scale 1-10, with 10 being the highest):
Food: 9
Service: 7
Ambience: 5

Recommendation: Excellent. One of our favorite places for take-out, Crescent Moon serves succulent kabobs and unique pizzas.

Central Ave, just North of downtown Minneapolis, is bustling with good ethnic restaurants and since we discovered Crescent Moon over a year back, it’s been our go-to place for take-out. We’ve done dine-in a couple of times and even though the interior isn’t much to look at, its hard to beat fresh hot food served with care by the friendly proprietor, Meerwais. This is also a great place for catering – it was our place of choice for our son’s 2nd birthday celebration and from the content faces of our guests (and their bulging bellies), we could tell we’d made a good choice.

We didn’t know what to expect the first time we visited, but were happy to see a variety of kebabs on the menu but surprised to
see pizza. On that first visit we noticed that the pizza was one of the most popular items on the menu and now we realize why - it’s hard to pass on pizza that has Afghani Beef and Gyro meat! These football pizzas have a thin and chewy crust and are accompanied by a tangy and spicy mint chutney which adds great character to the pizza. We’ve tried both the Meat Lovers and the House Special and highly recommend them. This is just another example of an ethnic restaurant you should eat family style with a large group – the pizzas are quite large and you don’t want to miss the kabobs! The Paulwan Kabob Plate consists of two long slender ground meat kabobs (one chicken and one beef) that are succulent and full of flavor – the accompaniments include fragrant rice with raisins, some Uzbeki bread, a simple lettuce salad with a herbed yogurt dressing and the killer green chutney. The other main type of kabob at Crescent Moon is the tikka – a nice-sized grilled chunk of lamb or chicken delicately marinated in a variety of spices. You can mix and match the tikka with the ground kabobs and that’s a good way to get some variety in textures and flavor. Both the Eggplant and Spinach sides were good but not memorable. We would recommend the Afghani Pies – think calzones stuffed with Gyro, Cheese or Spinach – that make for a satisfying lunch. We usually heat them in the oven till the time the crust is nice and crispy (my mouth is watering just thinking of the chunks of sizzling gyro meat waiting to burst out of the crust.) The last time we visited, we tried the Gyro Plate which was very satisfying but we kept sneaking peeks at the couple sitting next to us who had ordered the Combo plate for two which was piled high with a variety of delicacies. Oh well, next time I guess.

This restaurant only has counter service and the staff is friendly. Crescent Moon does get pretty busy so call ahead if you’re doing take-out.

$$. Most individual dishes are under $10, but the larger plates run from $10-$15. You can cater a large event for about $12-$15 per person. Street parking is available.