Momonoki

If you live in Orange County, this introduction will probably sound familiar: A local restaurant group just opened a Japanese/Italian restaurant in the same Fountain Valley plaza as an earlier and more conventional Japanese concept. As the younger sibling of omakase restaurant Momoyama, Momonoki is similar in premise to Kei Concepts’ three-year-old Japanese/Italian spot Ini Ristorante – and just down the street on Brookhurst – yet delivers a different spin on the same core idea. While Ini is a true fusion restaurant, using Japanese ingredients to thoroughly reimagine Italian dishes, Momonoki serves largely traditional Italian dishes that occasionally include Japanese or other Asian elements. Even in its soft opening phase, Momonoki is delivering solid results, and though it doesn’t match Ini in breadth of menu or plating, it may build a loyal audience thanks to more aggressive pricing.

While there’s no need to fixate on every similarity between these places, the differences in their menus are instructive. At Momonoki, there are no pizzas – one of Ini’s biggest highlights – and the newer restaurant’s list of dishes is considerably tighter, with generally more reasonable prices. Twenty total savory items begin with nine decidedly Italian-American appetizers, including a focaccia and butter plate with maple honey butter ($8), truffle parmesan fries ($9), regular ($9) and chicken ($15) caesar salads, fried calamari ($13), and grilled asparagus carbonara ($12). Somewhat more Japanese-influenced entrees range from numerous affordable pasta choices ($12 corn cavatelli, $15 cacio e pepe, $12 perilla pomodoro, $14 miso bacon carbonara, $15 pappardelle bolognese) to seared branzino, one of three entrees in the $25 to $27 range. Two additional savory items are for kids – buttered pasta ($7) and spaghetti marinara ($9) – and all three desserts involve one scoop of ice cream with a paired topping ($8). Drinks include five cocktails ($13-$16), soft drinks, wines, beers, and sakes. That’s it.

The six items we tried included two appetizers, two entrees, one dessert, and one cocktail, all of which we’d describe as at least good, sometimes approaching greatness. We started with Momonoki’s amberjack crudo appetizer ($16), which combined thin slices of raw hamachi with nectarine, pickled perilla leaf shreds, and an Okinawan citrus-soy ponzu sauce. While the portion wasn’t huge, and the plating wasn’t beautiful, it fully compared in intensity of flavor with Ini’s many fish crudos, and had conspicuously less oil, instead leveraging avocado slices for fatty richness. By comparison, Momonoki’s meatballs ($13) go toe-to-toe in looks and flavors with a similar version at Ini: Three nearly softball-sized spheres of breading and sausage offer a wonderful fennel flavor even when covered in red sauce, liquid ricotta, and microplaned parmesan cheese. We’d order each of these appetizers again, though the former for distinctive flavors, the latter as a filling alternative to bread.

The two entrees we tried were very different from one another. Cosmetically and conceptually, it would be easy to confuse Momonoki’s skirt steak chimichurri ($25) with Ini’s prime ribeye, which also happens to include a chimichurri sauce and vegetables – potatoes and broccolini versus Momonoki’s grilled asparagus. But Ini’s ribeye is stunningly three times (!) the price, and though it offers a larger portion of better grade meat, the difference is not worth the premium. Momonoki appears to use sous vide to make its skirt steak ultra-tender before finishing it with a light char, and it dabs a sweet-spicy red Korean gochujang alongside the green chimichurri to further punch up the flavor. The asparagus does double-duty here, serving as a bed to make the steak portion look bigger than its roughly seven-ounce size, and refreshing the palate between bites of the perfectly sauced beef. Even though Momonoki’s steak plating isn’t Ini-level impressive, it offers better value, and still tastes great.