no mongolian bbq -- healthy or not healthy? who the hell cares!

i was jonesin' for mongolian bbq last night it wasn't too long ago that i was introduced to monogolian bbq -- a few years ago. sure, there's ghenis khan at the malls. i totally poopoo ghenis khan simply because it's mall food. while i occassionally pick up an auntie anne's pretzel or a hot dog on a stick lemonade. but the mall isn't a place to eat a full meal. food laden with msg and salt at high prices is not particularly appealing.

i am not a food connoisseur or even a real foodie by any means. i simply live to eat and look for good values, including my meals. in fact, ghetto places attract me like a fly to a pile of shit. don't invite me to some fancy schmancy restaurant like lucques on melrose. my mother in law invited us out to lucques a few years ago and the food was mediocre at best. parkway grill in pasadena? eh. firefly in south pasadena? pass. you know what they say. you can take the girl out from the east side ghetto but you can't take the east side ghetto out of the girl. simple comfort food and good values are always on the top of the list. this would explain why my love for $40 a day with rachael ray even though the host is ever so annoyingly perky and she could have do a better job with some of her picks. hell, my husband and i joked that we could do a better job. 2 people for under $40 a day and still have money left over for a few more drinks. i am more of a tony bourdain girl, glued to the tv whenever no reservations is on. he's more my kind of food personality. real. gritty. gruff. sexy? i was on the fence whether he's sexy or gross (being the smoking chimney he is). agent h convinced me that he's gross. sorry, tony. smoking is a big turn off. btw, agent h is my husband who probably will get mentioned frequently on this blog as he is my meal partner in addition to life partner. feel free to chime in with comment, hon.

back to mongolian bbq. man, was i a sucker for not trying mongolian bbq earlier. agent h introduced me to big wok mongolian bbq in manhattan beach. it was love at first bite. good quality all you can eat at a low price. who knew? a good ayce apparently doesn't exist in japanese food arena (i.e. todai, onami). at big wok (i also refer to it as big -ock because i'm a dirty old man in a woman's body), two lines form around a long buffet of fresh meat and vegetables to build your bowl o' noddles. there are a huge variety of vegetables to choose from and multitude of sauces you can mix in for flavor. in addition to the piping hot dish of delicious noodles, big wok will also serve rice and baotse. the prices are reasonable. i don't recall the exact price since it's been a while -- i guestimate it's somewhere in the ball park of $10.95 to $13.95. big wok became the gold standard for all other mongolian bbq joints encountered.

Big Wok

250 N Sepulveda Boulevard

Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

(310) 798-1155

oh, back to yesterday's jonesin', i wanted to try to place which got rave reviews for a place closer to home called Golden Palace Mongoilan BBQ.

No pictures as I forgot my camera. walking into golden palace is taking a trip in a time machine. i felt like i was eating at a 70's diner. the decor is rather outdated as they had funky light fixtures and tiles. i don't care for ambience of a place as long as it's not crawling with roaches and it's generally clean. nothing turns me off more than a "c" rating or the disgusting slop they serve at sir george's royal buffet in arcadia. there was a long line of people along a single serving station. the standard meats were present: chicken, beef, turkey, pork, and lamb. my noodles consisted of:

• chicken and pork
• onions
• carrots
• cabbage
• lots of cilantro
• broccoli
• garlic
• sesame oil
• gold palace's kung pao mixture of hot sauce, teriyaki sauce, bbq sauce, and hot oil sauce

when we carried out plates of hot noodles over to our table, we found the usual bowl of rice and baotse. there was also a cup of cream of corn soup, a plate of egg rolls, and bowl of crispy wontons. score....sort of. the soup was your standard cream of corn soup and the egg rolls are what you find under the heat lamp at your local panda express. they did not warrant an arrest for foulness but didn't wow us either. it was ok. these items weren't the stars of dinner.

the noodles were pretty good. a bit spicy. a bit greasy. a bit good but it doesn't hold a candle to my beloved big wok. the vegetables looked a little tired and forget the other buffet on the other side. there is a small buffet of salad fixings and desserts. dessert consisted of bad generic strawberry and lime jello, sad looking almond jello, orange wedges, pineapple, and grass jelly which didn't seem to catch anyone else's attention. thanks, golden palace, but no thanks.

for $10.95 a pop and 30 miles closer to home, golden palace serves as a decent quick fix but certainly not the first place i'd race to for mongolian bbq.

Golden Palace Mongolian BBQ

3681 E Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, California 91107

(626) 796-1832