MoMo Italian Kitchen originated over 35 years ago and in 2017 Wende Stevenson and Aaron Gross bought it from a member of the Gattini family to carry on the tradition of Fernanda Gosetti’s (the Julia Child of Northern Italy) recipes. Actually Wende worked at the original MoMo in 1988, but both have much experience working/managing wonderful restaurants in Dallas. Now they have their own piece of history and continue to serve tasty Italian food in a comfortable, welcoming setting. I have to admit, I’ve known Aaron through a number of restaurants where he’s worked and enjoy his humor and commitment to quality. I ate a number of times at the previous MoMo and was glad to enjoy a lunch at the present day incarnation. Service was excellent and there is a large patio out front.
Facility
Food
For lunch a number of the pastas are discounted. The plates come with house made focaccia bread and herb spread and side salad. The bread was warm and nice and the spread had lots of garlic and herbs. The focaccia was good with and without the herb spread. The salad was nicely dressed with pieces of tomato, celery and onion to add texture to the array of greens. It was just the right amount and tasty.
Farfalline Al Salmone was with bow-tie pasta and smoked salmon in cream sauce with peas. It was a good sized portion with sweet fresh peas and moist chunks of salmon. The creamy sauce blended it all very nicely. It was a pretty as well as tasty plate.
Penne All’ Arrabbiata was tube pasta in a spicy tomato sauce with garlic and parsley. Normally this dish is on the slightly spicy side and Wende said she often asks for extra spice so I did too. It was indeed spicy and great. The perfectly cooked pasta adhered well to the chunky tomato sauce studded with lots of pepper. It totally cleared my sinusues and I loved it.
For dessert we chose Panna Cotta which is “cooked cream” or creamy vanilla bean custard with chocolate. It was smooth and a perfect texture. The chocolate sauce was mild adding just a hint of flavor. Next time I might go for the Italian Black Amarena Cherries but when you split a dessert it has to appeal to both. They also offer these cherries in a sundae that’ll be worth going back for.
