Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ, what brought myself, my brother and my cousin here was last weekend we went to Main Place Mall and we had Great Khan’s from the food court, and my brother said we should try out Mongolian BBQ he used to eat along time ago. My cousin Christian has never tried Mongolian, and for myself I have never tried this restaurant. Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ had the Chinese look to it, a worn/faded out wood panels surrounded the outside of the building. On a side note I really love the picture above, as it looks likes it was an epic venture to get to our destination, I just see that as I am typing away, please excuse my imagination! Back to the point, the moment you walk in, its at first a dark atmosphere, with a medium sized fish tank on the left with a decent size goldfish. Just in front of your is a small desk with someone there to greet you and send you to your table. When you take the first right into the restaurant, its got a old fashioned feel to it, the lights are a dim brown color. I kid you not, where we were seated the tables were not high at all, I meant it was perfect for eating, but from your thigh to the bottom of the table was seriously like almost touching! I felt huge where we sat at, as you are waiting, the waitress gives you a menu. My brother opened the menu first and all I heard was “0o0o00 damn!” as he pointed at option #1 which was Mongolian BBQ All You Can Eat for only $13.50, of course Christian and I were like “Oh what the!” So that is what we went with, after you put in your order for drinks(which by the way they do sell alcohol), you get up and walk to the food bar. Which includes three different areas, going from left to right you have your meats, vegetables, and sauces. With the meats you had a choice of 4 different kind of frozen meats: Turkey, Pork, Lamb and Beef. Huge hint!…..pile your bowl with a lot of meat, because when it cooks it shrinks, so trust me pack it! After you choose your meat, you go to the vegetables, me being picky when it comes to vegetables there was only three things I picked up out of the 10 selections, and that was Cabbage, Carrots and Cilantro. I was really sad that they didn’t have baby corn or water chest nuts, because seriously those are just delicious when it comes to Mongolian BBQ. They have them at the mall, so I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have them =( After that you have the sauce bar, they have a sign of really good mixes, or you can just go by your own judgment. Another hint, get a lot of garlic, the garlic compliments everything in your bowl very nicely! If you don’t like garlic, suck it up or you will be missing out, and that’s a true story! After you have your sauces down, you walk to the right some more and if the light is off, you ring a bell and a cook comes out. He grabs your bowl and places it on the sizzling hot circle grill and cooks your ingredients in the bowl. You can watch him cook your food, and its pretty interesting to watch your food shrink pretty much, when he gives your bowl back, you have the option to add sesame seeds as well as some hot sauce. Which both are a must, but go easy on the hot sauce, well if you want I am not too big on spicy so it destroyed me! Here are some photos of what I just described above:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After he gives you the bowl back, it seriously food for you eyes, I guess really depends on what you put in your bowl, but what I choose the colors of the ingredients in my bowl looked amazing. Walking back to your table with your bowl in front of you, you will for sure get the scent coming out of your bowl, and it is an amazing smell, to the point where you can’t wait not longer to get to your table and just stop and eat….but I resisted and made it to my seat. When I sat down I was surprised with three gifts on the table: A bowl of rice, a plate with 4 egg rolls, and I think 6 crab wontons, and lastly a little red basket with pocket bread. At first I was wondering “wait a minute, where are the noodles” because if you have been to a great khan’s at the mall or any other Mongolian BBQ place, they usually have noodles, but I guess traditionally they don’t use noodles but instead have pocket bread. Before I get to that, I shall explain the first two surprises, first was the egg roll which was bleh to me. It had a soft exterior which I didn’t like, I love the crunchy parts of an egg roll, call me picky and stuff but seriously the crunch is awesome! I wasn’t too sure if it was meat inside the egg roll, but it just gave me a weird taste. The crab wonton was pretty good, Christian said he loved it. As I was saying about crunch, this had crunch to it, with a soft middle that being the cheese and crab meat. Now onto the fun part, the pocket bread. The secret to it, is to kinda just chomp like they do in the cartoons when eating corn on the cob, just chomp chomp chomp chomp chomp, and there you go…congratulations you have created the entrance point to stick your yummy food in your bowl, and stuff it into the pocket bread…..hence POCKET bread =) Doing this is the highlight of the whole restaurant trip, the pocket bread had a fresh taste of well tortilla, which on the exterior had a small crunch to it. With the food in the middle, it just makes it so much better, depending on what you put in it, a lot of flavors come shooting out from different corners. The food in the bowl is pretty amazing, the meat is not dry at all, each bite has not only juicy-ness to it, but also has a different flavor. Some bites might be super garlic-key, and some bites might be spicy, and lastly some bites just have all of the above and it seriously is out of bounds! But the best part as I said before was you food in the bowl stuffed inside a pocket bread, simply amazing! Just be careful, those pocket breads get you full super fast! Here are some pictures of everything:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ssp’s Final Thoughts:

Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ isn’t a place to look for something formal, don’t let the dim lighting and old fashion look inside get the best of you. The food backs it up, and the fact that its All You Can Eat for only about $14 a person, you can’t beat that. Seriously that’s about half you pay at the Mongolian BBQ places at the mall, but here you pay more but you get more! Remember combine your food inside the bowl, stuff all that into those pocket breads!! Its a quiet restaurant, and really a pretty nice place to enjoy some great food and chat with family and/or friends. I do find myself thinking and knowing I will be coming back here! Here are some hints to remember:

• Their soda refills are not free! =(
• They don’t have baby corn or water chest nuts like the ones at the mall =(
• Be sure to put a lot of garlic into your bowl, it seriously tastes amazing with anything inside of it =)
• Don’t be shy, pack that bowl with as much meat as you can, during the cooking process it shrinks! =)
• And most importantly COME HUNGRY! =)

I hope whomever is reading my blog posts, enjoyed my venture to Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ, I know both myself and my stomach enjoyed it! Until next time, feast well!!!!