MOMOKOKO — Restaurant in Markham

I came here on a weekday with some friends around 6pm and didn’t get a table until 7pm. I was really hyped up for the food bc of the long wait, but ultimately was left disappointed.

Cons For the seasonal/ special dishes you can order 3 from the menu. I tried the miso cod, wagyu/tamaki rice, and lobster. The lobster and cod were pretty good but I will say pass on the wagyu. The texture and appearance just reminded me of vomit (see photo) and I couldn’t get past that. They also gave us one less portion for our group. We were 3 ppl but they gave us 2 of each plate.

The apps were so underwhelming. Got the miso soup and it’s pretty bland like hot salt water. The ice berg salad was just lettuce with sesame dressing. The spicy salmon tacos were not spicy and VERY bland. Like I couldn’t taste anything while eating it. Agedashi tofu was just battered tofu and no sauce?? Usually this dish has sauce.

The fried foods were consistently room temp/cold. I love fried foods so I was quite disappointed with what we ordered. The karaage was dry and bland, same with the tempura. They also lacked tempura variety. We ordered the shrimp and veggie tempura bowl and it only came with the shrimp. But we have a feeling they were low on veggies or something bc we also wanted to order grilled veggies and the server said it was unavailable. I ordered the ebi fritters twice and the second time I couldn’t eat it bc the shrimp was mushy, like the texture of shrimp when it goes bad (see photo). The takoyaki was alright. It was missing the mayo and the brown takoyaki sauce tho so it was just dry dough balls with a piece of tako in it.

The sashimi was alright. The cuts of salmon that we got were on the leaner side. The tuna was bright pink, I’m used to it being dark red but the taste was still alright. The sweet shrimp was pretty good tho!

As for the rolls, they come with 4 pieces each. We tried the foie gras, mango, and the poke rolls. The foie gras one tasted the best of the 3, but all were pretty meh.

The short ribs were on the tougher side.

Pros The teriyaki chicken was good. All the tataki dishes that we ordered were tasty. The cumin lamb was good, but when I ordered it the second time it was not as good. They chopped up the pieces so small that they got dry and crispy (see photo).

The plates and dishes they used were aesthetically pleasing. Some plates were comically large compared to the actual amt food. Refer to my lamb photo. I didn’t eat from it yet, it literally came like that lol.

Their desserts were tasty. The brownie was super rich and paired well with the vanilla ice cream.

I also liked their music playlist. It was all pop music with modern pop songs with some throwbacks from like 10 yrs ago. Food came fairly quickly and the servers were nice and quick to clear the table. We did have to flag them down when we wanted to order more food but I understand cuz it was super busy.

Overall I’d say skip this place for ayce sushi. It was around $60 per person after tax and tip and I feel like for this price you can get some rlly good quality sushi and...

tl;dr: A 20 sided die is more reliable than the service here.

Went on a reservation on a Friday night and seated right away, quality of the food was by and large quite good, some misses but mostly on the meat stuff which is about expected for AYCE sushi.

Orders are done by writing the amount you want next to the item on paper menus, but how they choose to interpret those numbers when they get it is where the bulk of the (many) problems begin.

Sometimes they'll forget you ordered something. Sometimes it'll be a similar, but otherwise completely different item (ie you order sushi and instead get sashimi, you get lamb instead of beef, etc.). Sometimes it'll show up eventually after another round or two has been sent out and you've long forgotten about it. You might check up with the server to see what is still pending, and realize they didn't check off more than half of the stuff they already served you and probably would've sent out to the kitchen again if it wasn't caught right away, even if done out of pure chance if not out of caution by this point. Order more than 9 of any of their items, and you may as well roll a dice to see how much they'll cut that number by, whether by subtraction or division (Hint: Whatever it is, it's by more than 1). While portion sizes are smaller than average especially with the sashimi and not always relevant in these cases, it does mean you send out more orders on average which not only seems wasteful with paper, but also means the chances of encountering most if not all or more of the problems I've described up until now are more likely to happen. Finally for dessert, you can be served rock hard brownies and almost melted ice cream, demonstrating that they are capable of defying physics just as well as they do with mathematics. Creme brulee was fine, though.

For AYCEs in general, you probably will have encountered at least one of those issues on a given visit and maybe not think much of it, especially for a weekend night when the answer to such issues usually is to just reorder it and/or maybe check up on it. For this many problems to happen in the span of an hour and a half however is frankly outstanding and not easy to ignore.

They may strive for quality when it comes to the food and overall do a pretty good job at it, but it seems to have come at the cost of throwing everything else out into the void to do so. Or perhaps they decided to give us the omakase experience when it comes to what we are served, and how much of it as a touch of misguided classiness to the experience. Whichever is the case that happened for my visit, I'm not too sure at this point.

Should you ever visit this place willingly or otherwise, bring a 20 sided dice and let it decide how much you should order of something. Chances are it won't matter anyways, at least with bringing one you can have some fun with your tabletop gaming friends and/or play hi-low as a bit of entertainment as you send out your order to see what you get on...

This place had been in my bookmarks ever since they opened but finally visited for the first time to celebrate my gf's sister's bday.

I thought long about my overall rating for this joint. I was at a teetering 3.5 stars and ultimately, I think I would round down to a 3 star "ok" rating.

So there's 2 AYCE menus (regular and premium). Our party opted for the regular menu.

The selection is not that large for an AYCE place (and the difference between the regular and premium menu is not worth it either imo). You would expect every item to be high quality and done really well then right? Not quite. We had very mixed reviews as it pertains to all the dishes.

The teppanyaki & entree items were better than the sushi imo but even so, don't beat out the teppanyaki items at Ichiban AYCE for example (also more selection of grilled stuff at Ichiban).

The sashimi seemed fresh. Some of the pressed sushi could've done w/ a lil less sauce on top of them (also these pressed sushis had a ton of rice in each one ... the rectangles were massive).

Out of all the signature rolls, we all thought the best one was the double eel & foie gras roll. The unagi fried rice was pretty good as well. Anything eel-related on the menu is prolly your best bet for tastiness.

The beef rib skewers were fattier than the australian wagyu steak skewer (which each diner was restricted w/ like 1) but too fatty.

The teriyaki beef came to the table medium rare which was a surprising W. Normally dishes like this come to the table well done so that was a pleasant surprise.

Dessert options/selection were also severely lacking compared to other AYCE places and not only that, they put restrictions on dessert too!

The staff gifted the bday girl a free matcha cake slice which was a nice gesture.

Just taking a step back and looking at the objective totality of the meal, the menu was narrow in selection, the sushi quality did not match the social media hype that I was seeing everywhere online and there are just too many restrictions even on the regular menu.

Also, the chairs (not the booths) are highly uncomfortable because they put these seat covers over a bamboo rung seat base so you basically feel the bamboo rungs digging into your cheeks through the seat cover (I was shifting around so much just to find a comfy position). If management is reading this, plz consider replacing the chairs w/ comfier ones LOL.

I'm not sure I would return on my own tbh. Maybe if I was invited again for a special occasion? In my personal experience, I would have to agree w/ other reviewers calling this place a bit overhyped by...