A Mongolian Grill opened up on the corner of the street sometime this past summer, but we never so much as took a peek inside.
Mongolia is somewhat abstract for me. I always imagine Manchuria and huts, big scary people. I don’t know why. It was only earlier this year that I met a real Mongolian lady. She was tall, yes, but not big and scary. She wasn’t tanned (I don’t know why I think Mongolians would be) and I am pretty sure she saw my eyebrows jump when she told me she’s from Mongolia.
So, I was curious about Mongolian Grill. Is the food going to be tonnes of meat? Are the servings going to be huge? I’m sure the food would keep the belly full and warm for the winter, considering it must be pretty cold in Mongolia and with huts as shelter.
What is your idea of Mongolian cuisine/Mongolia Grill?
Today we finally tried it out.
The attempt at making the restaurant look a little more classy is evident, although still falling short. Nonetheless, the effort is appreciated by fussy me.
What was a little disconcerting was the way the food was presented. Raw ingredients are lined up in a buffet style for diners to pick and choose what they would like in their plate.
Two noodles to choose from, thick (hybrid of udon with egg noodles) and thin egg noodles.
Four thinly sliced, bacon looking meats to choose from: chicken, beef, pork and lamb.
Eight or so vegetable varieties including onions, spring onions and mixed green/red/orange pepper.
A variety of sauces for you to make your own concoction, with quite a list of recommended sauces, including “recipe” of how much of each to make up the house sauce, etc.
Eli and I both tried the Mongolian sauce without spice.
The “chef” stir fried our selection of meet and veggies on a large heated steel plate, and the food was done within a minute. Much like Japanese teppanyaki.
First touch to the tongue and I liked it. Tasty and fragrant! However, as the plate emptied, the saltiness was starting to get to me and the oiliness too was bugging me. Fortunately the meal comes with white rice, which helped my tongue a little.
All in all, we liked the food and having tried it once, we will know what to do if we revisit that place – take more meat, cut down on salty sauce and oil!
So, with only my imagination as knowledge of Mongolia and its food, today’s excursion to the Mongolian Grill place did little to confirm or deny my misguided knowledge.
Eli and I left the place thinking, “What is the difference between Asian food? They all taste the same. (Except real Singaporean food of course).”
A quick internet search reveals: “Mongolian grill – neither the ingredients nor the cooking method has anything in common with Mongolian cuisine. Rather, they are inspired by the Japanese Teppanyaki.”
Awesome! We were spot on about the teppanyaki bit, but when will we ever be able to expand our knowledge and learn about real Mongolia and its delicacies?
This must be just a ploy like any other Asian food place in North America, Europe, the Oceania (anywhere besides real Asia) to further confuse these naĂŻve people that hey you know what? Singapore is actually a province in China! We are the only province in China that speaks good English. And yes, some with a tinge of British accent. (To understand previous statement, you have got to read this.)