Mt Everest Momo Cafe — Restaurant in Idaho

We received a Groupon for Mount Everest Momo Cafe, having never heard of it before. My parents knew that we love trying new foreign foods, so they thought it would be a fun experience. We had a little Anniversary Staycation this weekend, so we decided to try it out.

The location was a bit dodgy, in a strip mall, but the beautiful handpainted mural on the front window showing the name of the restaurant with the mountains in the background gave us a clue to the intense care the owners put into making this space their own. We arrived at the same time as another couple, and were greeted by (I assume?) the owner and asked if we had been there before and we were both first timers. So he stood between our two tables and gave both couples a warm welcome and detailed introduction of the food categories served there, what is most popular and what he recommended we try since it was our first time. We were delighted and I commented to my husband that this is the exact kind of individualized care and pride in the food that I would love to have at every foreign restaurant!

My husband and I have both eaten a lot of Indian food but we have never had Tibetan or Nepalese food before so we decided to order the Mixed Momo, which was four different kinds of dumplings: chicken, pork, veggie and yak! This came with a buttery, velvety orange-colored dipping sauce that we could not place the flavors of but was DELICIOUS. We preferred the meat dumplings to the veggie dumplings.

Then we shared an order of Samosa Chat which I have only had once before, and loved. This is a cut up Samosa covered with an amazing curry and tamarind flavored sauce, and fresh chickpeas, red onions, fresh tomatoes, and cilantro! IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE!!!! I am getting hungry right now just thinking about it. The combination of warm samosa with the crunchy fried shell, the sweet and spicy sauce, and the freshness of the veggie toppings and then the cool tangy yoghurt... I am not joking, this was literally one of my favorite dishes I have ever eaten in my life.

We also tried the Chicken Chau Chau, which was new to us. It was a plate of thick noodles bathed in a beautiful red sauce with chunks of delicious tandoori chicken and topped with fresh cilantro. It was delicious. It reminded us of the textures of Chinese Chow Mein.

Our waiter (the owner?) strongly urged us to try the Butter Chicken throughout the whole meal, which made us laugh. We have had it many times before so it was not a priority as we prefer trying new things. But at the end of our meal, when it was clear we were not going to order it, he brought us a tiny little dish of it to try. AND IT WAS SO GOOD I WANTED TO LICK THE PLATE CLEAN. RIDICULOUSLY delicious. He has some secret ingredient in there that makes it like crack. We guessed brown sugar or honey, but he was vague and elusive. HA! So guess what we'll be ordering next time...

I do want to observe that during our meal, he lit an incense stick and said some incantations while circling the register, the phone and a few other things, with a little statue of Ganesh sitting there. It made me a little uncomfortable, but I did have to say: whatever he's doing is WORKING! There was a steady stream of customers the entire time we were there, and we will definitely be back as soon as physically possible!! Now I'm just hoping for him to open a restaurant closer to us in Nampa or Caldwell!

EDITED: Wanted to add that the menu was MASSIVE! I noticed other reviewers saying that there are few menu options, so I am not sure if this menu version is new and updated, but just in case, I added photos of all...

Another hidden gem in Boise! My husband and I pass this place everytime we go for our prenatal checkups, and we've only just recently gotten a chance to try it. It doesn't look like much from the street, but looks can certainly be deceiving!

We arrived early for lunch on a weekday, so the place was quite empty, but that didn't bother us. Our server (I believe he was the owner, but we were too excited about having found out the gender of our baby to ask him unfortunately) was very attentive and asked us if we had been there before. He made recommendations from the lunch specials menu and left us to decide on our own. I ordered the "A" special, which came with three momo's, chau chau, a curry, and steamed rice. My husband ordered the "B" special, which was a full sized curry, steamed rice, and naan bread.

Both orders came correct and were very flavorful. My husband had the chicken tikka masala, which was rich and creamy with a nice undertone of coconut from the milk used. It had a small amount of spice, which my husband thought was perfect. In my special, I had chicken vindaloo, lamb chau chau, and pork momos. The vindaloo was zesty and spicy, very flavorful. The chau chau (completely new dish to me) was very familiar tasting, but also exotic if you can believe that. It had the sweet and salty tones that one might recognize from Chinese noodle dishes, but the frying of the noodles gave it a caramelized bitter flavor that perfectly balanced it. Lastly were the momos. I thought they were delicious, and the vinegared chili sauce that came on top was very nice. Unfortunately, they were also the source of my only complaint: the meat inside was quite dry. I've never had momos before, so it's entirely possible that they are meant to be that way, so I'll reserve judgement until I know otherwise. Personally I would have preferred a more juicy filling.

A final note: our server noticed us staring at our ultrasound photos and took the time to ask us about our baby, which we were more than happy to talk about! It was very sweet.

All in all, we will most certainly be returning in the future, preferably for dinner so we can try...

I am perplexed. I take great care in crafting my reviews to make them as fair and just as I can. After eating here I decided to do a deep dive into the reviews because this is quite the conundrum. I can only think of two possibilities: the people leaving reviews have not experienced good Indian/nepalese/tibetan food or momos. The sheer amount of reviews makes that seem implausible; the other is that the place was taken over by someone else. The pieces of this puzzle paint a picture of opposites - people love it or they hate it. Usually that sends up a red flag for me.

Here’s my experience. I was craving momos during our visit to Boise, and I was thrilled that, not only was there a momo place, they had vegan food! I insisted that we go eat there. The server was clearly an owner, which is pretty typical, and he was clearly embarrassed there were no customers during what would be the lunch rush. I shrugged it off as no big deal. He was friendly, but a bit hovery and fishing for what we thought about each item which made me a bit uncomfortable. My momos were sad and bottomless. They looked like they had seen a battle or two. They didn’t have a lot of flavour. I also ordered samosas which were fine, and veg chao chao. The chao chao was awful. It was spaghetti noodle, and had the consistency of left over spaghetti noodles. It was very oily. To be fair, I asked for spicy and it was on point there, but I think they use a chili oil for spice. It left a plate full of oil which is unappealing. Moreover it had no flavour, just heat. Also in fairness, my partner got the lamb chao chao, and he quite liked it. He also tried mine and said it was very different than his. He got chicken momos, and was not impressed. They, too, had seen hard battle, and the chicken, he claims, was dry. I was incredibly disappointed. We have a great momo place where we live, and generally seek them out when traveling. I give 2 stars because the service was decent and my partner liked his chao chao I’m sorry to say we will...