Years ago, we used to go to Mongolian Grille (https://yelp.com/biz/mongolian-grille-austin-3) for lunch downtown at 117 San Jacinto. The food bar was often a little suspect sanitarily speaking, but it tasted so good. You could fill your bowl with as much as it would hold. They had a mix-your-own sauce area with a recipe chart for different flavors. And I always ate too much of the flat bread.
So is there anything like this around the Austin metro area that had this … that’s good … that’s not crazy expensive?
by Austin_Native_2
17 Comments
I miss Mongo Fire on 183. 🙁
I miss places like this too 🥲
If you’re willing to go a little further north, Kublai Khan off of I-35 is pretty good!
[East Buffet](https://www.google.com/maps/place/East+Buffet/@30.1949847,-97.7713452,14z/data=!4m10!1m2!2m1!1seast+buffet!3m6!1s0x8644b34390293f51:0xe95308f8fc8bea79!8m2!3d30.1902129!4d-97.7679715!15sCgtlYXN0IGJ1ZmZldFoNIgtlYXN0IGJ1ZmZldJIBEmNoaW5lc2VfcmVzdGF1cmFudOABAA!16s%2Fg%2F11gg64nc7y?entry=ttu)
I can smell this picture. When I used to work downtown in the late 90s/early 00s we’d go over there for lunch all the time.
Kublai Khan on Tech Ridge, North Austin by Parmer Ln
Kublai Khan is the closest thing. You could drive all the way to Killeen for a Genghis Grill, lol, or I think San Antonio still has Hu Hot
Used to be all over the place everywhere…now they seem all gone.
Genghis Grill used to have a location at Westgate. I just realized it doesn’t exist anymore, otherwise that would have been my suggestion.
East buffet at WC/35
China E Buffet in Round Rock has one along with the buffet
I know its not the same, but you can try your Korean grill places, like Charm or K BBQ.
Reminds me of the one downtown where gus chicken is at rn
Hear me out but Buffet King is a good spot. The guy(s) that work the grill have been doing it for years. I go there for just that and get the bonus of getting some eggrolls, rangoons, California type rolls, and basically the non-fried stuff they have outside of the appetizers I mentioned.
RIP Mongolian Grill on North Lamar for you old townies. First Mongolian Grill in Austin and still the best we’ve ever had. The owner was Chinese and got on the wrong plane due to a language barrier (as the story goes) and fell in love with Austin. He decided to move here, and import one of those inverted grills from China and the rest was history. I use to go there and stop off at the Indian grocery next door for some grandma samosas to take home. There was a barber next to the grocery that owned a used CD shop and if you got your hair cut, you got a free CD. Oh, I miss old Austin, I’m sounding like one of those people.
Maybe Fire Bowl in Round Rock?
None of those places hold a candle to the way they do it in Ulaanbaatar. 😉
I used to LOVE the place on second by the convention center. Wasn’t it called Mongolian bbq?. There was one on n Lamar also. Cheap and so food. The trick was to pack the bowl with food that wouldn’t cook down as much. And they had little sesame flat bread that was so tasty. I used to eat there weekly in the 90’s. Damn I miss that place.