Kublai Mongolian Barbeque caught our eye when we drove by on the way to Sofia's in Croydon. So as we were driving down the road one night, it caught our eye again and we decided to try our luck. I thought it may have been a bad move when we were given a "Naughty, naughty" when we said we had no booking. But we got one of the last few tables.
The same man came over a few minutes later & explained to us the concept of the restaurant. Basically, he said, there's Asian food that you can get anywhere or you order the Mongolian BBQ. It's a buffet where you choose your meat, vegetables and sauce and hand over your bowl to the chef who then cooks your dish on a huge flat hot plate (sorry but I forgot to take a photo of the most important thing in the restaurant! Just image somewhere that you can cook a huge crepe on & you get the gist). Did I mention the chef uses basically a set of huge chopsticks to cook with?? It's all about the flair & flick of the hands as the cooking area is enclosed in glass so you watch as your dish is cooked for probably less than a minute.
Now we're told what most people get wrong is the sauce. There are about 11 types so to make things easier, there are about 6 recipes on the wall that you simply follow. Of course ET would have none of this. He tried his own & was very impressed with the outcome. And even though we were warned about the chilli, ET wasn't at all put off by it.
Now this all sounds well & good but did I mention the meat comes as shaved frozen pieces?? You get taken aback when you first see it, but obviously you need to keep the meat fresh and stop it from going off quickly. Plus having it thinly shaved means it also cooks quicker. There's actually an explanation for all this - including the reason for the frozen meat. I can explain it to you, or you could just go visit & read the menu for yourself : p
You get four choices of meat. There's a seafood and vegetarian/tofu version, which I would guess is served separately if you choose to order it. The vegies on offer include carrots, tomatoes, capsicum, cabbage, bean shoots, something I don't know the English word for, and one or two others.
Apparently the record is 8 bowls for women (sadly I could only do 2 1/2. But in my defence I was coming down with the flu) and 13 bowls for men. If you can beat it, you get a free dessert!
Most people went up at least a few times. After all you gotta try a few different sauces. And everyone seemed to order the unlimited steamed rice. For $2 per person, how can you go wrong?
I noticed throughout the night that two different waitstaff would come up to us to take an order within minutes of each other. It wasn't until after we left that ET explained when, for instance, we turned down dessert the waitress looked to the manager and shook her head. The manager then grabbed the attention of a waiter and sent him directly over to us. We still said no to dessert and the waiter also shook his head at the manager when he walked off. Considering the manager worked the floor so well, chatting to all the customers and even offering ET his own special chilli sauce when ET made mention he was handling the chilli quite well, we can only guess he's invested in this place.
This place is entertaining and would make a fun night out with a group of people who have never been before. (I actually found another review with the heading "Bizarre Experience") But it's certainly not a place we would visit often. The showmanship of the chef makes a difference, the hard upsell is not for us, and quite frankly, how much meat, veg and sauce can one have?
Lastly, while trying to find info on this restaurant for this here blog, I came across the fact that Alex, the owner, was actually on Australia's Biggest Loser a few years ago. So, if like me, you thought his face familiar, that's probably the reason why!
434 Maroondah Hwy, Croydon West
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