Mo-Mo-Paradise, a restaurant that specializes in shabu shabu (Japanese hot pot), reopened its San Diego branch earlier this week. The San Diego location had its grand opening in October of last year but then closed temporarily when outdoor dining was no longer permitted. The restaurant is now currently open for outdoor dining, take-out, and delivery.
Mo-Mo-Paradise has dozens of locations across Asia and a few in Southern California. While there have been quite a few all-you-can-eat hot pot restaurants that have popped up in San Diego the last year, I was most excited for the opening of Mo-Mo-Paradise, having dined at their Rowland Heights location previously. What really stood out for me during that meal was the high quality of ingredients, especially the meat.
As much as I wanted to indulge in their full dining experience, we weren’t comfortable with dining out yet when they first opened, so instead we decided to try their take-out. We visited twice before they temporarily closed. If you’re interested in their all-you-can-eat dining experience, you can view my visit to their RH location here to get an idea of what it’s like. My understanding is that the offerings are pretty similar to what I had previously, though they now bring you all the ingredients instead of letting you get it yourself.
For take-out, they offer shabu sets, bento boxes, and a la carte menu items. You can view the full take-out menu here. We opted to get the shabu set on each of our visits.
The shabu set included a little of everything that is usually available during the dine-in experience, including everything to make our own sauce. It also has an instruction sheet for how to cook your shabu set at home (table top or stove top).
For our broth, we chose shabu shabu flavor for the first visit and tonkotsu (my favorite) during our second visit. For the meat, we tried all three options over our two visits. Our favorites are the short plate and chuck eye roll.
The shabu sets are meant for 2 people and I felt the portions were enough to let us feel pleasantly full after. It was nice to have a taste of Mo-Mo-Paradise again though of course, it wasn’t the same as dining at the restaurant. I’m still happy they now have a location in San Diego and look forward to dining there in the future.
Mo-Mo-Paradise
8120 Mira Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92126
https://www.momoparadiseusa.com/
