The HuHot Mongolian Grill

When Jacob's family was helping us move our things into our new place, Lorenzo (Jacob's dad) noticed the HuHot Mongolian Grill right down the street and asked us to test it out for him and report back. We were happy to oblige, especially since it meant a free meal for us!

So here is our unofficial Romney Restaurant Review (I'm loving the alliteration):

The HuHot was not your traditional "order from a menu" type restaurant, so at first I felt a little self-conscious and uncomfortable. When I go out to eat, I usually prefer to be seated, order from my menu, and have my food brought to me so that I don't ever have to leave the security of my table. It's the reason that I've never really liked buffets--they force me out of my comfort zone by requiring me to wander the restaurant in search of what I want to eat. Maybe that sounds weird, but that's me. I also prefer booths instead of tables, because I feel too open at a table, like everyone in the restaurant can see me. Booths feel more secluded. But that has nothing at all to do with this post... just a random fact about me!

So back to the HuHot... the food is set up into three buffet-like stations. At the first station, they have different kinds of meats (all uncooked) cut into thin slices--sausage, pork, chicken, beef, lamb-- as well as different types of noodles. So you grab a bowl and throw in whatever strikes your fancy. At the second station they have vegetables, like cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and those tiny corn cob things that are often in stir-frys (I obviously have no idea what they are called). So you plop some veggies into your bowl to pretend that you're healthy or something. Then at the last station, you create your sauce. This is the station where you can really get crazy. They have around a dozen already prepared sauces in addition to a bunch of make-your-own-sauce ingredients, and you can mix and match to create your own little concoction! It was exciting and also a little terrifying to be in charge of making my own sauce. My first time around, I stuck with a few ladels each of two prepared sauces, but I got braver later on and made some of my own creations.

Finally, after you've covered your bowl of goodies with at least 5 ladels of sauce, you hand your food to the grill-man to fire it all up. He takes a couple minutes to cook the food, and then he hands you your plate of stir-fry yummies.

It was delicious! Jacob went up twice, and I went up three times (I am a breastfeeding mother, after all). Jacob even fed Naomi a little from his plate, and she loved it, too. Overall, we'd say the HuHot gets 4 stars out of 5... 5 stars is reserved for especially awesome restaurants, like Fogo de Chao in Kansas City. Oh man, that place is amazing! But we're reviewing the HuHot Mongolian Grill here, so enough about that.

And actually, I might be inclined to up my HuHot rating to 4.5, because their menu gave us a chuckle.

(In case you can't read it, the menu says, "How to Pillage like the Mongols. Step 1: Prepare for battle. Step 2: Control your destiny. Step 3: Pour on the flavor. Step 4: Advance to the grill. Step 5: Take back the bounty. Step 6: Relive the conquest.")

P.S. Although I wrote this review today, we went to the HuHot weeks ago! So don't be thinking that we were breaking the Sabbath... I promise we went on a weekday.