Khan's Mongolian Barbecue
Written: Aug 29 '05
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Pros: you can make your food to suit yourself
Cons: not really any unless you are have severe allergies or dietary restrictions
The Bottom Line: The food is delicious and it's fun to eat at Khan's.
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| serc's Full Review: Khan's Mongolian Barbeque |
One of my all-time favorite places to eat is Khan’s Mongolian Barbecue in Richfield, Minnesota. This is a fun place to take even people who hate “Chinese food,” since the buffet style main dish allows you to choose the ingredients and sauces in your dish yourself. Big eaters appreciate that “all you can eat” aspect of Khan’s. While I can’t eat nearly as much as I could when I first starting eating at Khan’s (when I was in high school!), I still always enjoy going there.
Khan’s Mongolian Barbecue is a good-sized restaurant; I’d estimate that it can seat between 75 and 100 customers when it is full. The ambiance they strive for is definitely Asian, although the restaurant itself doesn’t have the elegance of some Asian décor. While you are welcome to dress up, most guests are in casual attire. I usually wear a nice pair of pants but jeans or shorts are just fine. Reservations are recommended if you plan to go in a large group or if you want to eat during peak dinner hours on weekends.
Beverages are not really the focus of Khan’s, and although they do have a small bar area, it is so cramped that I wouldn’t want to sit there. Non alcoholic selections include sodas and hot or iced tea. Beer and wine are available, and they have a full bar with some interesting drinks featured. Usually I choose to drink a lot of water, but on one occasion I did order one of the featured alcoholic drinks, a Mojito. The drink itself was excellent, but I didn’t think it meshed well with my food. During my last visit I perused the drink menu for fun and thought about ordering a Cosmopolitan, but then decided that I could spend the $6.00 or so that would have cost me somewhere else.
Khan’s is not a restaurant in which you can choose food from a menu. Everyone receives the same plate of appetizers, and everyone gets rice and the delicious baotse bread with their meal. The only real choice is whether you get one time through the buffet or as many as you want – and that is dependent upon when you choose to dine at Khan’s. Lunches and dinner from 4 pm to 6 pm feature the cheaper “one time only” meal; this is also featured every Tuesday night. After 6 pm it is the “all you can eat” buffet only. There is a price difference, with the “one time only” meal costing only $8.50; “all you can eat” is $12.25.
Before the buffet, appetizers are served. First, small dishes of pickled cabbage are placed on the table. I used to eat this out of politeness and a willingness to try anything, but I actually like it now. It’s crunchy and sweet – and possibly the only way I will eat cabbage! Next an appetizer plate comes to each person, featuring a chicken wing, a small dish of hot and sour soup, and a big fried… cracker-type thing that comes along with both sweet and sour sauce and a tiny bit of hot mustard sauce. I generally like all of these items, although I do wish they’d be more generous with the hot mustard sauce; I prefer hot to sweet.
Finally it is time to walk through the buffet. Plates are placed at the beginning so that you can pile the food onto them. First there are the meats; slices of raw beef, chicken, pork, and lamb are always available. Sometimes raw shrimp and imitation crab are also out on the buffet. These are safely refrigerated in the buffet, so no worries about food safety. Next is my favorite item, the noodles. I always pile my plate high with a lot of the thicker noodles – they aren’t as thick as udon, but they are thicker than spaghetti. There are thinner noodles available now, too; I think they are rice noodles but the labeling at Khan’s is hit or miss. Next up is a variety of fresh vegetables – and a few fruits. I usually toss on tomatoes, pineapple, broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms. There are also onions, green peppers, and bok choy. They also have a container of tofu which has been compressed and pre-cooked in some way, which in my opinion improves the texture. I always add a lot of tofu. Finally there are a bunch of sauces to choose from; I usually toss most of them on my bowl of food, including the hot dragon sauce, the curry sauce, and the garlic. People who want a milder version can play with the sauces at their discretion. Khan’s employees are available to help first-timers and they always make sure to ask if you have eaten at Khan’s before.
The final step with your creation is to have it cooked, and that is done by taking it over to an area of the restaurant with two giant cooking surfaces are being tended. The cooking implements look like giant woks to me, only instead of being shallowed out they are convex. The cooks will ask “do you want peanuts on this?” and I always say yes to that – I think I’d be happy just eating the noodles and peanuts cooked in sauce. Occasionally I’ve had cooks forget to add the peanuts after I’ve asked for them, but that is pretty rare. The cooks take your dish, dump it onto their cooking surface and cook it all up – when it is judged ready, they hand it back to you.
Back at the table, you will find a bowl of rice for each diner, as well as one of the baotse breads. The rice is, well, plain white rice; it’s not my thing, but many people do eat it with or on their meal. The baotse bread is one of my favorite things; it is sort of a white, doughy bread wrapped around a sugar and sesame seed concoction. It’s delicious, but the sesame seeds could be startling if you didn’t know they were in there. (One time I was with a friend who had never been to Khan’s and his first thought was “bugs!” After he realized what the seeds were he really enjoyed the bread). Extra baotse bread can be ordered if you aren’t already stuffed with everything else. I’m not sure of the cost, but I don’t think it is more than $1.00 per baotse bread.
As with many other Asian-themed restaurants, fortune cookies are handed out with the bill. I believe you can also order green tea ice cream for dessert, but I’ve never been able to stuff anything else in after going through the buffet once or twice.
One thing that should be noted about the food at Khan’s; it is all cooked on the same communal area, so occasionally a piece of someone else’s meal might get into yours. Vegetarians should be warned that a piece of meat might intrude on their veggie meal, and people who avoid various other foods because of allergies need to be aware as well. I’ve taken plenty of vegetarians to Khan’s and they’ve all been satisfied, but I do think people need to realize this could happen. Because peanuts are cooked into the food, people with peanut allergies should stay far away from Khan’s.
The service at Khan’s is pretty good; it isn’t a full-service restaurant because of the buffet aspect, but dishes are cleared in a decent amount of time and I don’t remember ever being desperate to get more water. We usually tip the same way we would in any other restaurant. Sometimes we also throw a dollar into the tip jar that the cooks have right outside the cooking station. Adding a tip to the tip jar earns you the right to hit the gong placed near the cooking station; a sign posted claims that doing so will bring good luck.
There are two other Khan’s Mongolian Barbecue locations in the Twin Cities area; one in Coon Rapids and one in Roseville. There used to be one in the Dinkytown area near the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, but it closed several years ago due to some road construction issues. While the three remaining Khan’s seem to be affiliated with each other in some way, I’ve wandered into places in other states labeled “Khan’s” and had entirely different experiences. A “Khan’s” in northern Wisconsin featured a terrible meal with the same basic idea but no variety on the buffet… and the meats sitting out didn’t seem to be required. I’m not sure if Khan’s is a national chain, some kind of franchise, or a series of independent operations. I would approach the ones outside the Twin Cites area with caution.
I think even the pickiest eater will find that Khan’s Mongolian Barbecue is a fun place to eat. Creating your own “Asian barbecue” is a lot of fun, plus you can avoid all the things that you might hate in other Asian foods. (Personally, I have a bitter hatred of water chestnuts.) I’m always happy to eat at Khan’s. 5 stars.
Thanks to megugrrrl for adding this restaurant to the Epinions database!
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: Yes
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations If you''re really hungry, order extra baotse bread.
Best Suited For: Large Group
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Epinions.com ID:
serc
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Sara Robinson-Coolidge
Location: Northfield, MN
Reviews written: 861
Trusted by: 317 members
About Me:
SAHM to one 11-year-old boy and one 6-year-old girl, feminist, bibliophile, and aging college student
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