Looney Café Luna - Cambridge

                                

For reasons I can’t quite put a wand on, Café Luna’s cute but crafty, whimsical but substantial, eccentric but elegant eats conjures the image of Harry Potter’s multi-faceted Luna Lovegood who was never afraid to march to the beat of her own kitchen? All of Luna’s food is crafted with Hermione’s skill, Molly Weasley’s talent, and the creativity of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Each dish shines like the light of a full moon - just be sure not to obscure it with a cloud of syrup…unless you’re Prof. Lupin…

For starters, the Blueberry Italian Soda is Café Luna’s butterbeer. Get it every time you come and you can’t go wrong. Sadly, there’s no way you can take it back to Hogwarts with you, so just sip indulgently while you wait for your food. If you ever get the urge to try the apple cider instead, curb your craving with the Italian soda and buy a gallon at your local grocery store/apple-picking orchard on your way home. They have some nerve charging $3.50 for a wine glass of plastic-gallon-jug cider considering the entire jug is worth less than $10. The Italian soda, on the other hand, is well worth the price. I could taste sweet juicy blueberries in the syrup, and considering Café Luna offers more soda flavors than Bernie Bott’s every flavor beans, I doubt you can go wrong.

Like Madam Rosmerta, Café Luna’s manager gets major props for taking pride in what he serves. He personally came to tell us to taste the stuffed French toast before asking for syrup as the already-sweet, flavor-soaked toast needed none. Not that I would ever consider adding syrup to something I’d never tasted, but it’s a good word of caution to the less food-savvy, and it saves a foolish diner from ruining a masterpiece.

The Pumpkin Pie Stuffed French Toast could have used less bread and more pie – it was soft and gloriously gooey, but the toast obscured the more subtle spices of the pie. The Blueberry Lemon Stuffed French Toast, on the other hand was sweeter than I’m usually comfortable with due to the use of lemon curd instead of fresh lemon, but Café Luna really made it work. The best part: Café Luna allows split portions of the French toast so you can indulge your indecisiveness and taste both options before making the ultimate choice. Harry Potter would have envied you in book 7…how about a half-portion of the horcruxes and a half-portion of the deathly hallows?

I was gladly goaded into splitting the Omelet with goat cheese, sweet potato, and caramelized onion. Sweet potato can’t possibly be bad, but I just wish all the ingredients had been distributed evenly throughout the omelet. More often than not, I only got one ingredient in a single bite, which was a crying shame because those three things were absolutely explosive when combined. So let’s spread the chevre this holiday season!

In Miss Congeniality, Cheryl Fraser’s perfect date was April 25^th because it’s not too hot and it’s not too cold and all you need is a light jacket. My perfect date was December 3^rd because it wasn’t hot at all and it wasn’t too cold, and I had a not-so-light brunch date at Café Luna. Forget long walks on the beach, rose petals on the bed, and sappy music with champagne, the fastest way to my heart is a hearty bite of stuffed French toast and a deep sip of blueberry Italian soda.