For more than a decade, this restaurant was called Yesterday’s. Now, it has been refitted and renamed (actually, returned to a name it had a long time ago), but it’s still not one of the best. In fact, it’s a distinct comedown for a restaurant that had shown considerable flair in the months before it was transformed from an expensive and elegant spot on the water to Shooter’s on steroids.
Moonraker retains the stunning position on the Intracoastal but features a “regional American” menu and a drop in prices that the staff insists brings it into the realm of the average pocketbook. In fact, prices are on the high side of moderate.
The wine list, once among the best in town, has taken a significant nosedive in both price and quality. Diners still walk by the impressive cellar on their way into the dining room, but the wines offered with the menu are mostly second wines of wineries that do better, including Jed Steele and Kendall Jackson from the United States and Rosemount from Australia.
It is the menu quality that dismays me most, not because there is an inevitable comparison to what the restaurant once was, but because it just isn’t very good.
A crab and lobster cake ($9.95) is mostly mushy filler that isn’t helped by being served on a plate too hot to touch, though the cake itself is lukewarm and the accompanying chutney is frigid.
Spinach and artichoke dip ($7.95) is pedestrian, “crispy” calamari and zucchini ($6.95) are cool and lack crispness, a thinly sliced portobello mushroom ($8.95) was served in a puddle of oil under a blanket of cheese that was linoleum in an earlier life, and a large platter of nachos ($7.95) had no distinguishing characteristics at all.
The nachos are the tipoff that Moonraker hasn’t quite figured out what it wants to be. On the one hand, there is the fixed menu that includes a fair meatloaf ($9.95) and an average-quality half roast chicken with lemon and rosemary ($10.95). Family dining on the water, a reasonable concept. But contrast that with the long list of nightly specials that, intriguingly, were the only dishes my servers have been willing to recommend.
“What about the main menu,” I ask. “Oh,” they reply, “wouldn’t you like the lamb chops ($28.95), that’s a special tonight?”
While the specials are significantly more expensive than the main menu, they aren’t noticeably better. Sesame-crusted tuna ($18.95) had the thin gray exterior that speaks of quick baking at too low a temperature rather than being seared. Prime rib ($21.95) is good, and I longed to try the lamb shanks (market price) that are occasionally offered but weren’t on my visits.
I did try the grilled pork chops ($15.95), which were moist and reasonably tender but had enough oil left on them to indicate they’d been fried after grilling or basted with oil — either way, a step that rendered what could have been a good dish just too greasy to enjoy. I left wondering if I would have done better with a turkey burger ($7.95).
There are several sources from which this restaurant might have taken its name. Moonraker is an archaic synonym for a simpleton, but I prefer its nautical origins as a small sail positioned at the very top of a square-rigged ship. At this restaurant, which retained a friendly staff and still has that fabulous view, it conveys a sense of reaching for the sky. Perhaps that definition will eventually win out at this restaurant that, for now, has a grasp that easily exceeds its reach.
M.L. Warren is a pseudonym to protect our dining critic’s anonymity. Please phone in advance to confirm information on hours, prices, menu items and facilities.
