Going to Gobi Mongolian Grill first came up when meeting with a fellow photographer, a regular at the restaurant. But what about this Southington restaurant makes it Mongolian barbecue?
I first came across the idea of Mongolian barbecue a decade ago in, of all places, Stockholm, Sweden. In a land of salt-dried fish and lingonberries, the concept conjured epic visions of Genghis Kahn spit-roasting a slab of meat and serving it on a sword.
Unfortunately, that’s not what a Mongolian barbecue is.
The reality is more akin to a “make your own stir fry” station. The idea is simple: for a flat price ($15.95 for dinner, $9.45 lunch, or varying prices for children based on their ages), diners fill their plates with veggies, meats, and other accouterments, and everything is cooked on a massive griddle: a “choose your own adventure” for your mouth.
Gobi, much like my favorite Stockholm dining establishment of 2006, features long buffet-style tables full of ingredients. The success of any dish depends on an individual’s vision. Steamed rice is available for free, and Gobi also serves appetizers and offers recipe placards at the table. Snow peas and carrots with crab and sweet and sour sauce? Noodles with ham and marinara? (The Mongols never sacked Rome, but I suppose anything is possible.)
I begin with noodles, carrots, green onions, red peppers, napa cabbage, and garlic. A mix of spicy Szechuan and yellow curry sauces rounded it out. Delicious. My friend goes strictly meat, with bacon, chicken, and beef sauced up with Korean BBQ, spicy Szechuan, Teriyaki, and spicy garlic sauces.
Grabbing a fresh plate for round two, I overhear a man in army fatigues teaching another the ropes of Mongolian barbecue.
“Since this is your first time, be careful not to load up your plate,” he says. “What happens is, you see all this stuff and load it up, then they cook it and it’s heaping off your plate. Then you’re like, ‘Dang! How am I gonna eat all this?'”
Truer words have not been spoken. Like all buffets, it’s better to err on the side of a smaller plate and frequent returns. Unlike the Mongol cavalry, the food isn’t going anywhere. Gobi also allows you to take home leftovers, for $4.99 a pound at lunch and $5.99 a pound for dinner. I topped my plate of noodles with bacon, pork, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, green onion, cilantro, and garlic, plus spicy garlic sauce.
Watching the grill is part of the fun. The cook spreads out the ingredients toward the center of the grill and occasionally sprays water to loosen any charred bits. It was then that I noticed the soldier to my right even had eggs cooking on the griddle.
“Oh yeah, you can do eggs,” my friend tells me later. “One time I came here and this guy literally just got steak and eggs, that’s it.”
So what exactly makes a Mongolian barbecue Mongolian? Enough food from around the globe to feed an empire.
>>Gobi Mongolian Grill, 855 Queen St., Southington, is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. gobimongoliangrill.com and 860-426-1233.
