The Sig Eps at American University had a big charity fundraising project last night at BD's Mongolian Grill in Bethesda. BD's, a national chain of Mongolian-themed restaurants, lets charity groups come in to their restaurant and receive a percentage of the gross for the extra guests they bring in to the restaurant that night. The charities provide some "guest grillers" to help the cooks fix the food, plus greeters who walk around the restaurant. My friend Peter, who's a doctoral student at American, dragged me out and made me go with him.
Mongolian grills have been a growing sub-segment of Chinese restaurants around the country the past few years. Typically, they feature a buffet of raw meats and vegetables where the diner selects what will go in his or her food. The selections are then handed over to cooks at large, high temperature, round grills to be flashed cooked with sauces and seasonings selected by the diner. The cooking technique is said to mimic that of the ancient Mongols, who supposedly sliced their meat thin, added whatever vegetables they found at the side of the road, placed their metal battle shields over the fire, and cooked their food in their shields, stirring with their swords.
Three Sig Eps help the restaurant staff cook food on the round grill.
While the Chinese restaurants are rather more traditional in their approach, the BD's chain has taken the concept, Americanized it, and run with it, creating a typical noisy, energetic, high volume American eatery. The food bars and grill are designed in a way to maximize the number of diners processed in as short a time as possible. They've added a full bar with Mongolian-themed drinks, included typical enormous high-calorie American desserts, put up stylized Mongolian photographs and art in the dining room (including a "Mount Rushmore" mural with presidents in Mongol costumes), and renamed the restrooms from women's and men's to "Mongals" and "Monguys."
Diners start at the small salad bar for unlimited soup and salad. Last night's soup seemed to be a bean soup, but might have been a thin chili (I didn't try it). Then, diners go back, grab a bowl, and make their meat, vegetable, and sauce selections from a double sized buffet. Meats I saw included New York strip steak, ribeye steak, chicken, lamb, sausage slices, meatballs, salmon, Krab, shrimp, squid, and baby octopus. Vegetables included non-Chinese, non-Mongolian things like potatoes and pineapple. Sauces and toppings went well beyond the Mongolian tradition and included "Buffalo," Cajun, Italian, and Mexican themed things. The grillers used a pair of faux-swords to scrape, chop, and mix the foods on the grill, and the grilling ensemble seemed to be having a great, raucous time over there, banging their swords on the grill, all rotating around the grill as they each eventually had a hand in cooking all the food.
For an additional $2, diners can have "unlimited" trips to the grill. Naturally, we both had two plates. Here're pictures of my two. You'll note in one the tortillas in the corner—this is the first time I've ever had Mongolian tortillas! Ja Ja.
Neither of us had room for dessert. The girls at the next table, however, did, and ordered a couple of things, including this "Mongolian mudslide." You can see how big it is in reference to the tall iced beverage glasses on the table. You can't see it, but it's a big wedge, too. The girls each ate a bite or two of it, then left it to ultimately be devoured by their Sig Ep boyfriends when they stopped by the tables to be social.
Peter, being a graduate teaching assistant in political science, knew a lot of the Sig Eps from his classes, so we had a lot of visitors to our table. It was a fun evening, and I may have to think of a charity to support to get a group to go up and cook and make a little money for a good cause.
