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| - I'm almost certain that Genghis Khan did not conquer much of Central Asia and China by feeding his subjects a dizzying choose-your-own-adventure of meats, veggies, sauces and condiment sauces to be grilled on a giant stone lifesaver.
I've come to expect the same from buffets no matter the cultural twists. Generally you're talking about a long line of steam trays, sneeze guards and deep fried foods. As Marie F. puts it, we're talking about the "quantity not quality approach". The novelty with the Mongolian Grill is that you are presented with a wide variety of raw meats (beef, pork, chicken, and lamb) and vegetables, some seafoods (shrimps, fake crab and squid rings), noodles (egg, rice, udon, etc.) and a stupefying selection of soupy sauces (spicy, curry, honey garlic ... more than 10 in total) and condiment sauces (ginger, garlic, oyster ... more than 20 in total). The idea here is that once you've cobbled together what you think would be a tantalizing concoction of ingredients you hand over the cooking duties to the men at the grill. The grill is a large round stone cooking surface where the "chefs" use to prepare your carefully chosen delectables. You stand along a bar and watch as the magic happens. Sounds very exotic and fun doesn't it?
The problems begin about 10 steps before you get to the grill. You really have no idea what's going to make a good dish. I'm not a good cook so I threw together a bunch of ingredients that by themselves looked pretty good but quite possibly a potential disaster here. When it comes to the sauces a loud mouthed hostess lady was happy to scoop all kinds of liquids into my overflowing bowl of mounding food. She was even kind enough to carry it over to the grill and hand it to the chef.
Once at the grill itself the chef first scrapes off the caked on charcoal of past delicacies from your designated grill area. In the centre of the grill goes the blackened sludge (more on this later) down a hole to god-knows-where. Then the chef throws your bowl of assorted num-nums onto the grill and proceeds to move it around with what looks like a very large wooden chopstick. He shuffles it around and flips it every which way and eventually slides it into a larger bowl with a deft hand, only losing maybe 10-15% of it off the side of the grill.
Ok if you haven't guessed yet I've found a few problems with the formula here and I'll dispense my opinions now.
How am I supposed to know what goes into making a good Mongolian dish? I'm no cook, why should I have to make this kind of decision? In fact, the very reason I chose not to stay home to eat is because I am either unable or unwilling make the critical decision of what to cook at this time. Isn't the reason you go to a restaurant is to eat food that is based off a recipe you don't know and have it prepared for you?
Assuming you get past this, the bowls they provide are way too small. You end up having your selections falling off the side and then get your hands all dirty pouring the sauces on. Clearly they know this a problem because they have ample napkins around the grill area to wipe your invariably filthy hands. Also notice that the bowl they slide the food into after it's cooked is much larger than the one you brought over. Coincidence?
However the real deal-breaker here is that once you get back to your table and chow-down on your cleverly devised dish, you'll notice that there's an alarming amount of blackened crud mixed in (remember that sludge?). It makes everything taste like ashes. Kind of like barbecuing at home without thoroughly cleaning off your grill.
Finally the "chefs" appear to be a surly lot. They speak Cantonese and when I was there I noticed that they were cursing at each other a lot. Just so you know, in Cantonese "di-you" is basically the F-word. Maybe I'm being harsh as there's not much culinary talent that goes into dumping a load of ingredients on the grill and cooking it to death.
To cap off this review the other buffet items that don't get grilled on the giant stone life-saver are only OK at best. Deep fried chicken wings, soggy stir-fries, appalling dim-sum dumplings (they are truly heinous), and the usual variety of "asian" buffet foods that you'd normally find at a Mandarin just with less selection. The dessert table fairs the same with a selection of fresh fruits (most of which were decently fresh like the strawberries) and little snack cakes (not great) and ice cream. There's also a chocolate fountain that is very appealing to young and old alike.
To top it all off the price of $20+ for an adult plus drink and tip is not very compelling. Do yourself a favor and go to Choco Korean BBQ in Markham if you want to grill your own meats and eat all you can for about the same price. I think Genghis would mourn over his name being associated with this poor establishment. 2 stars for good strawberries.
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