New Moon rising to funky hangout status

Now, about that cafe part of the New Moon Cafe. This may well be the type of eatery Bangor has been waiting for — clean, funky, nouveau-granola. World travelers might be reminded of popular coffee shops in Portland. The New Moon Cafe is in its early cycle of becoming this sort of hangout for newspaper-reading intellectuals and others who think The Bagel Shop next door leaves them smelling like onion bialys after 15 minutes.

The atmosphere is tres post-modern, with rafters exposed — nay — displayed as part of the general workings of modern life in the urban downtown scene. About a dozen tables are spread out generously in the airy space that is also home to a few comforting plants. We are especially pleased with the baby grand Yamaha piano in one corner, and the bust of Wagner that oversees the joint.

The menu is small, and we like that because it causes less confusion. An adequate selection is far better than an overwhelming one. When the kitchen is stocked full, there are 10 sandwiches on the menu, plus a daily special, and it’s all more or less good for you. If you really want junk food of the highest order, cross the street and go surfing at the Intown Internet Cafe. There, the menu (and we use that term philanthropically) is a sure way to stay awake long into the night. Zing-wah, and pass the chocolate-covered coffee beans.

For the health-conscious computer junkie, however, the New Moon is the place to be. There are two tuna sandwiches — one with a curry flavor, another with horseradish dressing. We tried both and as much as we wanted to favor the latter, the former was far more poignant.

The names of sandwiches come from computer lingo. We sampled the Byte (smoked turkey and havarti with honey mustard), the Floppy Disk (Genoa salami and provolone with dijon) and the Software (veggies and creamy dill dressing in a wrap). We had a choice of breads — made by Borealis Bread in Waldoboro — which turned the sandwiches into megawiches. These babies are dense, which is a good word for a sandwich, but not such a good word for honey-citrus vinaigrette, which we had to plop rather than pour onto our salad.

If you’re going for lunch AND watching your waist, you may want to order a half-sandwich and choose from the salad or soup menu. We had a tossed salad, which was a generous portion, but the vegetables were white-bread — the kind you might find in a sandwich shop specializing in dicing rather than aesthetics.

The desserts, most of which are made on site, are sweeter than some may like, and we, for example, don’t like chocolate chips in our scones. However, we do understand the trend toward specialness, and realize that there’s a whole world out there that puts chocolate chips in bagels, biscotti and — alas — scones. We probably will stick with the raisin muffins. Unless the ubiquitous choco-chip shows up there, too.

Tea and coffee drinkers will be happy in this spot because the selections for these daily elixirs are broad and delicious. Plus, the place is open long hours and we like knowing that pretty much anytime we want, we can sit in the window, cup of java in hand, and watch the big world go by. The stereo music in the background never infringed on our thoughts, and we liked the friendly service of the staff, the magazine sale rack, and the white leather couch that seemed to invite company but had no defined role.

Most of all, we never even noticed that, sequestered in a side room, were computers and their human counterparts with servers, binaries and hard drives that interest us not a byte.