And the best part is, one can opt for a totally difference experience on the next visit to the buffet. Wanna go hard on the meat but light on noodles? Have the plate with steamed rice and shaobing. Need some crunchy veggies and a sprinkle of grilled meat, all soaked up with spicy-tangy sauce? Done. To me, Mongolian barbecue is more like a noodle stir-fry but tailored to one’s exact mood. In a minute or so, the ‘barbecue’ is plated and ready to take back to the table, where baskets of sesame-seeded shaobing are presented as a belly-filling carb. Metal spatulas clink satisfyingly like a teppanyaki chef at work, and the two cooks shift the meats, noodles, and veggies in a graceful, coordinated clockwise motion. Skilled cooks take customer bowls, pour them out onto the grill, and splash water to hydrate the ingredients gently, which throws off dramatic billows of steam. Taking the bowls to a wide circular steel grill in the center of the space is itself a cultural experience that pulls at the primal heartstrings of famished warriors gathered around a fire. Mix up a suggested combination or just go buck wild with what you might like. The most interesting customization comes with the sauce bar, where metal cylinders with barbecue sauce, ginger water, lemon water, garlic water, chile oil, “dragon” hot sauce, minced garlic, and teriyaki. Then the work begins, loading in diced broccoli, onions, jalapenos, bell peppers, cabbage, carrots, and mushrooms (the list goes on…) before moving to thick wheat noodles that one loads up (those opting for rice can forgo noodles and get steamed white rice at the table). For my first visit, my two, let’s say, “food enthusiast” friends - who know the ropes around buffet eating - jumped right in, loading up plastic bowls with shaved frozen meat, whose options include beef, pork, chicken, and lamb. Service is excellent and attentive too, with plenty of signs to guide first-timers (use a glove at the buffet, for example). While a lot of Mongolian barbecue restaurants look worse for the wear, Big Wok, which is at least a few decades old and used to operate other locations, appears to be comparatively shiny, with modern chairs, clean banquettes, and a bright dining room filled with the South Bay sun (its website hasn’t been updated since the mid-aughts). The wide circular steel grill pulls at primal heartstrings, like famished warriors gathered around a fire. So he went with Mongolian barbecue, an association that the country of Mongolia might never have asked for, but also never bothered to complain about (khorkhog is the actual method of Mongolian barbecue). He opened a tea shop in Taipei the early 1950s and started serving griddled meat and veggie plates but couldn’t call it Beijing Barbecue due to political reasons. In reality, Mongolian barbecue was conceived and marketed by comedian Wu Zhao-nan, who was originally from the mainland but fled to Taiwan in 1949. Eventually the Chinese adopted this cooking method, adding fresh vegetables and sauces alongside soft shaobing bread and tea. Genghis Khan’s warriors were supposedly fueled in this way, leading to the domination of much of the Eurasian continent in the 14th century (though, no mention of Khan’s atrocities). The fable goes that long ago, Mongolians raised livestock as nomads, living like cowboys and cooking grilled meat on iron skillets. Mongolian barbecue boasts an evocative origin story, almost all of which happens to be completely fictional, at least the one presented visibly at Big Wok’s entrance and even openly on this chain’s website. Big Wok might be one of the last remaining Mongolian barbecue buffets in Southern California, and proof that delicious, fulfilling lunches are still attainable for under $20 in LA. Familiar with the mall food court variant, the bonanza felt like a cheat code with endless bowls of custom stir-fry plates of thick wheat noodles, sliced zucchini, crunchy bean sprouts, and sliced beef doused with spicy, garlicky sauce. It wasn’t until earlier this year that some dining enthusiast friends introduced a novel concept (at least to me): all-you-can-eat Mongolian barbecue at Big Wok in Manhattan Beach. Growing up, the salad bar of Sizzler was our family’s go-to for nonstop appetizers of spaghetti and marinara or crunchy tacos with a side of limp iceberg lettuce. In an inflationary world, there are few things more comforting than all-you-can-eat dining at a modest price.
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