I’m a husky bastard. I’m on a diet though – one that allows me to eat a large dinner as long as I play by the rules during the day. this is great because I can take advantage of things like an all you can eat buffet for dinner (as long as I’m not eating trash). Momo’s on Transit by Eastern Hills Mall is my favorite AYCE buffet. My friend Jill introduced me to it, and we try to get there at least once a month to hang out and eat good. What makes Momo’s different than your standard ‘Star Buffet’ or ‘Friendly Chinese Buffet’ is that it’s not a bunch of steam-warmed trays of standard americanized asian cuisine. Heck, you don’t even have to get the Buffet, they have great sushi and plates that you can purchase off a menu if you’re not looking to gorge yourself.

Alright so lets talk buffet. If you opt for the buffet, There’s a system – you go up the buffet line, grab a bowl, and fill it with stuff from the buffet. First, you select your proteins. There are tons to choose from – Beef, chicken, pork, fish, shrimp, hotdogs, bacon, sausage, squid, imitation crab – just to name a few. All the ‘turf’ meat is frozen and shaved thin, the ‘surf’ meat is all fresh – nothing is cooked (except the bacon and sausage).

Then you round the corner, and are presented with more or less any vegetable that you’d want in a stir-fry. Nothing is cooked, it’s all fresh ingredients – put it in your bowl.

I didn’t want to ham it up too much and take pictures of everything, but I can tell you that around the next bend there are Pad noodles, rice noodles and lo mein noodles – to toss on top. Next to that is a huge selection of sauces and seasonings – You are building a perfect bowl of goodness – put whatever you want in there. Then comes the magic part – you hand your bowl off to a cook. Yes – and then they dump it onto a huge cooking surface where they chop it and mix it all up while everything cooks, and they mix everything together with these long metal rod type spatulas.

Always tip your cook, then when it’s ready, they scrape it off the cooking surface onto a plate and hand it off to you. They have all the sauces and additional final toppings right there, and you take your piping hot fried goodness back to your table and have at it. It’s glorious.

round two – surf!

I even got a beer!

My wife got some Crab Ragoons! I had a few!

Bottom line – this place is the tits. The first time you go, you will screw things up – but you’ll get it after a few visits. You’ll know exactly what you want, and what flavors you want to mix in. I really hope this place sticks around, because we love it, and we love seeing our friend Jill!