Momona — Restaurant in Chico

Momona's new updated location is the perfect blend of updated and upscale dining while also keeping the charm of the older building they renovated. The atmosphere had a great charm to it that felt more like laid back family style dining. The food and drinks came out quickly, which was a surprise as they where pretty packed for a Wednesday evening. Their new updated dinner and cocktail menu was great to see. I will say they do need to tweak a few things on some of their dishes and cocktail menu for my review to go from 3 to 5 stars. The chicken and waffles was good, but it needs a something like a maple syrup element to tie in the mochi waffle and the chicken. A spicy maple syrup would have been perfect to cut the dryness of the waffle.Also, who makes a chicken and waffle dish and does not have a syrup! The Shrimp and Rice was tasty with a warm and savory coating to it but it needed something like Siracha mayo to coat the rice a little since the fried rice was dry. I also hate when you pay almost $20 for a shrimp meal and you have to de shell the shrimp yourself. It is a messy process. The kimchi and bao where as always amazing and will be my number one item I come back to purchase every time. The reason for the three stars is the cocktails flavor profiles VERY where off. Started with a cocktail that had a orange citrus flavor and oat milk and tapioca pearls. The tapioca where rock hard and we could not enjoy them at all and the oat-milk did nothing to defuse the acidic flavor in drink from the orange they added. The cocktail needed an herbal element to it to cut the acidity. My friend had a drink that was very tropical TeKi drink but it was over powering in its rye whiskey and sugar, making it very had to enjoy. The last drink we got was the Suzie Q, which was very off in its flavor profile as it tasted like straight up soap. Something about the yuzu, sake and green chartreuse did not pare well all and all three in my party thought it was the most unpalatable cocktail of all three. For $12 cocktails, these need to be slightly more refined in order for me to try them again. I will go back again for sure but hope they continue to work on some of these dishes so it goes from...

My family and I came here when they first opened, I was very disappointed in the ramen. It was like dishwater broth, very bland noodles, and just all around sad. We tried again today, seeing as it's been years and the reviews have gotten a little more positive. Well..... it was an even worse experience this time, the wait staff was very unorganized and unprofessional, the person who seated us left for the day after taking our order and didn't even inform us, our food was brought out 1 entree every 15 minutes even though we all ordered together on 1 ticket. We only got 3 of the 5 entrees, after waiting another 40 minutes I finally had to go to the front counter and ask why we were still waiting. Well turned out they got the order wrong, and didn't have my wife or sons food on the ticket, the whole reason we went was to treat her to a mother's day dinner. They said " well looks like your server is gone for the day whoops" we never had a server come to check in or ask if we needed drinks or anything beyond a couple glasses of water which ran out and my son was whining, my wife had to find a server and ask for water and he drops off a metal refill pitcher. Beyond the horrible service, the food was still atrocious, the bathroom is 2 steps from the kitchen, they were blaring rap/edm, and an employees bike was leaned up right next to our table, the servers kept rushing past almost knocking it over. The whole experience was God awful and I will not be recommending this place to anyone, I will actually be doing the opposite and making sure people know to stay away. Only good thing was it reminded me how much I hate downtown chico and to stay...

3.5

I've been here at least half a dozen times at this point; the first two were before the menu changed to the make your own model, and I got a cold ramen that was the special that summer which I thought was amazing, if kinda small. Since the make your own menu, though, I usually do a rice bowl, and I'm never disappointed with the flavors I pick or portions so I'm generally fine with what I'm getting for my money. The bao can have tasty flavor combos too, and I really like when they put the spices/furikake on, which when ordering they usually ask if I want or not.

But, I've done the make your own ramen now too, and I didn't realize hot sauces were .50 add ins, so the miso broths tame umami blandness was saved only by getting hoisin sauce pork belly and pickled mushroom (I do love the pickled shrooms) and soy sauce that I asked for. There are pho places in town that do better portions with sauces at the table to use to your hearts content for less money. Also, got bao today without furikake (wasn't asked but assumed it was default, but perhaps too many people are frightened by flavor?) And it was fine but not making me want to get it again. With the number of poke places in town now, I'm honestly just coming back for the pickled mushrooms.

There has also been a time or two during a busy dinner where I felt a little ignored at the bar to close out. Which didn't really bug me at the time but does contribute towards the overall rating.

Long story short, the answer to all your flavor problems is probably furikake. Or getting pho...