Uncle Momo — Restaurant in Montclair

After reading several great reviews, I decided to eat here. Food only average. No where near many middle eastern restaurants I've been to in the NJ/ NYC area.

The staff is very nice, I will say. Very welcoming. I went in about 4:00 and only one table had diners, and sometimes if a restaurant is dead, the staff can be nasty or lax. At least when I walked in I was greeted with a smile and immediately led to a table.

I ordered lentil soup, hummus and baba ganoush, no drink, just water. The only multi-appetizer offering was $18 with 6 choices of appetizers, which I felt would be too much food for me, and too expensive for lunch.

The lentil soup was very small, a disappointing size for $6.95. More disappointing was the taste, or lack thereof. It was the blandest soup I've ever had in a middle eastern restaurant. Not inedible, and I ate it all (I had a cold and hoped hot soup would help), but SO innocuous. And not hot! Luke-warm.

The hummus and baba ganoush came and were presented in 2 mounds on the plate. The waiter asked, "with bread?" when I ordered it. I said "yes". What else would I eat it with?! I said yes.

When the they There was came, no 'bread' to be seen. The waiter walked away, and the man who greeted and seated me was on the other side of the restaurant, eating, with a colleague. They were separated from the dining area by some post and the front door foyer, which blocking our sightlines. I tried getting their attention, but finally had to walk over. The man who had greeted me said, "Do you want bread?" (he had not been the person who took my order) and I said, "yes".

A segue that actually factors in: this place has a pizza oven. So the guy walks back to talk to the guy managing the pizza oven. I'm glad I'd eaten the soup because it took 5 minutes to get what I assumed would be pita bread, which was being heated up in the pizza oven.

When it came it was quite wide, round and very puffy. I tore a piece off and scooped up some hummus. Very bland. No where near the best hummus I've ever tasted. Quite lemony, but nothing else. No garlic, and no tahini taste, either. Just garbanzo and lemon. Then I scooped up some baba ganoush. MUCH better. Again, not the best (I think the best is made with roasted eggplant, and this had not been roasted), but it had flavor, and the texture was excellent.

Both mounds of hummus and baba ganoush were mid-sized, so one weirdly large, thin 'pita' wasn't enough, especially since it was very thin, and not chewy like the usual pita bread. Needing more, I walked back over to the two men who were still eating.

The nice one jumped up and said, "Do you want more bread?" I said "I think I need two." "Two?!" he sort of gasped as we walked toward the pizza area. "Yes, two." I had gotten through about 1/3 of the hummus and baba ganoush, so 2 more 'pita' seemed about right.

Eventually it came and as I ate, I wondered why it was so thin. It had very little flavor, and no chewiness of normal pita. Then it hit me - they used pizza dough! It certainly had the same bland taste as pizza dough. They stretched it out like pizza dough, but very thin. Interesting, but less effective than normal pita, because pita is thick enough that hummus or baba ganoush doesn't feel like it will soak through or drop out of the bread. Mine kept dropping out because the bread was so thin you couldn't grip it firmly or it would have torn.

Only the baba ganoush was worthy of eating. The biggest kick in the ass was: the bill was $24! For a very small soup, hummus (a 29 oz. can of garbanzo beans costs $1.99 retail, NOT on sale, and it makes more than twice as much hummus as I was served), and baba ganoush (a big eggplant makes 2-3 times more b.g. than I got).

I can't recommend Uncle Momo's for their food. The ambiance is nice, and the guy who greeted me was exceptionally nice. I simply don't understand all the glowing reviews about the food. Wish I could because I love middle eastern food. This place is a bit pricey, but had the food been good I would have...

A "No No" for Uncle Momo!

I considered only 1 star however some of our party liked this. This is a tiny, noise, place. On one hand I can see the appeal, feels like a tight Parisian cafe. The other people here were of an interesting mix. A table of 8 young late 20-somethings, older couples, many searching for a good ethnic tasting.

However, we did not find this. We shared a Momo Salad with Feta ($10 listed on the menu as Romaine lettuce, tomato, pepper, artichoke, kalamata olives) This was a tiny salad that was presented on a large plate, with NO tomatoes, NO artichoke, NO pepper and some thinly sliced onions.

My husband ordered Hummus ($5.95) that came with some incredible pita. He loved it. I should stop here because this was the best part of our meal.

I studied the menu before we went and noticed they offered Steak Frites ($23) stating it was Organic grass fed Rib-eye served with fries. The steak was inedible. It tasted old and odd, inedible and no way was it grass fed. It was so fatty. And the Frites (fries) were the kind that came out of the bag that you bake in the oven for your kids. Not fried, but baked. A good does of salt and some ketchup got me through those.

My husband ordered the Lamb Shish Kabab Plate ($14.95) which was described as Ground lamb served with grilled tomato, Shallots & rice. There was NO tomato, NO Shallots, and lots of rice. Think Lamb Meatballs. The lamb was cooked inconstantly, some of the meatball kabobs were undercooked, some over cooked, some fine.

The couple we were with ordered Salmon and Chicken Kabobs. They liked them. They offered be a piece of the chicken and I gotta say it ended up getting dipped in the ketchup... to dried out.

When they came to clear the table they noticed that I had not eaten the steak. I quietly explained it was inedible. The waitress removed the item from the bill.

We will definitely not...

If I could give this place NO stars I would due to HORRIBLE customer service. My husband and I were so excited to try this place because we heard about how great the food is. We ordered through door dash and unfortunately they were having system errors so a driver from uncleMomos was going to deliver our food. We kept calling and calling every 15 min, they would say the driver is almost there. Well, 2 1/2 hours later we call and we spoke to Rose and she said "well your order was canceled on door dash so our driver turned around". ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!! We NEVER cancelled the order, that was door dash that apparently did without our knowledge. And we told Rose WHY would we cancel when we've been calling you a million times asking for status of the driver!!!??? For her not to have the courtesy to call us to confirm if we actually cancelled infuriated us. But the worst part?...we were left with NO food on a Saturday night (my husband and I ate potato chips for dinner), Rose and staff did NOTHING to accommodate this inconvenience, and we were left FURIOUS and starving. If your staff would have done the right thing I wouldn't be writing this review, but instead I think it's important for the public to hear about the service we received. Poor Customer service is unacceptable, doesn't matter how great your food is. Unfortunately we will never give this place a chance...