Incidentally, you should expect a Mongolian barbeque to be 30% to 50% more expensive than a Chinese buffet. A Mongolian barbeque is not a buffet. It’s a place where all the items are special orders. The cook has to prepare your meal separately from everyone else’s. In a buffet, many people’s meals are being prepared at once. There’s no way a Mongolian barbeque can be as cheap as a buffet.
I disagree. The place I went was $6, and the place bodypoet keeps referring to is $6-8, that is the same price as a chinese buffet. Not only that but the place bodypoet refers to has a fully stocked chinese buffet with about 60 entrees as well as a mongolian BBQ. $6 is about average for a chinese buffet around here so at least in Bloomington the prices are similiar.
Yeah, some Chinese buffets are more expensive than others. There’s one around here that runs at least $10 - they have things like crab legs & mussels.
This one has crab legs too, as well as some sushi. I wonder why I don’t go to this one as much on paper it sounds like a great deal?
The fact that Bloomington is a college town plays a role in price I bet. I once read something that said Bloomington was one of the most impovrished towns in the US and about 30-40% of inhabitants live below the poverty line (not suprising considering about 1/3 of the people here are college students) so the prices are probably going to be lower on some things.
Wesley, thanks for this thread. I have read many of the responses out loud to my boyfriend, whose family owns a Mongolian BBQ (nowhere near IN, of course). He’s laughed himself silly, and wants you to know that there are many, many people who have to ask how to put the food together the first time they eat there. All of the staff are used to helping, and will even be happy to put the sauces on for you, if you’re not sure what to choose.
He said to tell you that the second most common question they get (after “how do you do this?”) is “Am I really supposed to eat this stuff raw?” The really shy ones just fill their bowls and sit down at the table - staff always have to look out for them to catch them before they start eating it raw. So you’re miles ahead of those people!
Other interesting tidbits about the Mongolian BBQ gimmick: even at $6, believe me, they’re raking in the money. Most people’s bowls fill up fast with the veggies, leaving little room for meat. I’ve learned from the family to pile the meat on, and keep piling, and pile some more, and then crush it down (it’s frozen and usually kind of stiff) and pile on some more. The chefs may give you the evil eye because it’s cutting into profits, but that’s the way.
The best/most authentic places have fresh cilantro and sliced lamb on the bar. The stirfry doesn’t taste quite right without a little bit of each. And a few places serve baskets of nifty little bread pockets - the bf’s parents actually had to go back to China to learn how to make them - that look kind of like Hot Pockets. They’re hollow inside, sesame seeds on top, and you rip off the top short edge and stuff in your BBQ, and eat it like a little sandwich. So good! They’re supposed to be made with lard, though, so avoid them if you’re vegetarian or don’t eat pork.
At least at this restaurant, the “turkey” on the bar is really just dark meat chicken. Turkey itself apparently doesn’t stirfry well. And the coolest thing, to me, was seeing the staff getting the meat ready for slicing in the kitchen. They’ll take a whole raw chicken, make a few fast cuts, and slide out the entire skeleton! Then they peel off the skin, and plop the whole boneless chicken into some plastic wrap, roll it up into a log shape, and freeze it. When it’s time to serve, they run it through a deli-slicer, still frozen. I got a big kick out of that.
Anyway, good on you for trying something new, and being willing to try again after a bad first experience. Enjoy your second trip!
Maisy
I love Mongolian buffets, here in Minnesota we have Khans Mongolian BBQ. My usual selection.
Couple big slices of Beef
Couple slices of Pork
Overflow the bowl with thick noodles
4 scopes of shrimp
4 stalks of broccoli
Some carrot shavings
some red and green peppers
3 pinches of bean sprouts
Couple pieces of crab meat
2 scoops ginger water
2 scoops house hot sause
1 scoop cooking wine
2 scoops of dragon sauce
2 scoops of jalapenos
maisypjh, the place I frequent has the lamb and the cilantro too. It even has the bread you describe, except it’s so small I can’t picture opening it and stuffing anything into it. Each piece is about 3/4 the size of a deck of cards. How big is it supposed to be?
Qadgop - this thread has got us hungry. Since you’re the only WI doper I’ve seen in this thread, do you know where we can find Mongolian BBQ in Madison?
No, sorry. But take I-94 to Milwaukee, then take hiway 100 north about a mile (probably less) to Ghengis Khan Mongolian BBQ, past Bluemount Avenue, by Wisconsin Avenue, just next to the gas station on hiway 100. Closest place I know, and they have the cilantro, shaved lamb, and shrimp too. And the mongolian bread. It’s on the west side of Hiway 100. If you hit Watertown Plank, you’ve gone too far.
:: waves ::
We haven’t sought out Mongolian BBQ on our frequent trips to Madison, because we’re too busy looking for good Indian and African food (Maharaja, yum!). But if you’re ever in Appleton, look for Mongo’s, downtown on Franklin St., two blocks north of College, which is the main drag. It’s a block or two west of the library, IIRC.
I haven’t yet tried the Mongolian BBQ that some Chinese buffets have, on the assumption that it can’t be that great. Am I mistaken?
I’ve only tried the Mongolian BBQ at one chinese buffet, but it was not good. At Ghengis Khan, the BBQ comes first, the rest of the buffet is just filler. And it showed.
QtM, it’s maybe 2.5 x 5.5 inches, not huge, but big enough to put several chopsticks-full down inside. It sounds like you’ve got a good place!
Maisy
My mom took our family to the Mandarin place tonight, and I made my sister do the Mongolian thing because she’s better at it. It was awesome. We did shrimp, pea pods and some other nice green stuff, and she picked the sauces (there are actually only a couple to choose from, probably a good thing for me). It took maybe three minutes to cook. GREAT stuff. I was quite pleased.
Wendall, these places here are cheap, seriously. The one we went to tonight was about $8 each, and it has a decent sized buffet as well as the Mongolian BBQ. Tonight they had four kinds of shrimp on the buffet, as well as crab legs and steak chunks and the usual chicken dishes.
That’s the nice thing about Bloomington–you can eat pretty inexpensively if you know your way around a bit and stay away from the big steakhouses. Of course, with a big family, there is no such thing as a cheap dining experience, but it does help when it’s under $10 per person.
Damn, I was going to go there tonight too but decided against it since I already went for pizza with my brother for lunch.
Its actually $5.95 for lunch at that place, they just charge the dinner price ($7.95) all day on the weekends.
What are other people’s experiences on the relative prices of Chinese buffets and Mongolian barbeques? My experience is that Mongolian barbeques are 30% to 50% more expensive. No, you don’t need to tell me about prices in Bloomington again. I want to hear what the relative prices in other cities are.
I find that your observations are correct. Mongolian BBQ is always at least a few dollars more than Chinese buffet (for damn good reason, IMHO).
[sub]And you made me “teehee” at the “No, you don’t need to tell me about prices in Bloomington again.”[/sub]
Son of a…
It seems they raided a bunch of places. No chinese for me for a while, I guess.
There’s one in DC’s Chinatown that runs $8 for lunch and $15 for dinner. I’ve never been there but this thread is making me want to try it.
Roll call.
Okay, who else went to a Mongolian BBQ this weekend just because of this thread?
:raises hand:
It’s a BDs up here in Indianapolis, and it’s $15 for dinner. Not too bad, but still a little spendy for casual dining. However, the options are overwhelming.
Meats:
chicken
hickory sausage
beef
prime rib
ny strip
duck (which I tried once, and it was fantastic)
pork
veal
shrimp
talapia
crab
Veggies:
pineapple (?!)
broccoli
g. pepper
snow peas
water chestnuts
mushrooms
onions
carrots
baby corn
(probably others, but I can’t remember)
Plus a full buffet table of sauces and spices (including a pot of minced garlic). The new feature was that they told you not to put your sauce in your bowl - it burns too quickly on the grill comparitively to your food. They provide ramikans to put your sauce in, which they add during the final minute on the grill. HUGE improvement, and much more satisfying. Mainly because I think it adds more sauce to your dish - many people are hesitant to add the sauces and oils in anything but very small quantities.
I went to mandarin buffet today, the mongolian BBQ was mediocre. I just put two kinds of sauce on it and made it with beef and noodles.