Bang Bang Mongolian Grill

Yikes, I am really far behind on these. I’ve been sitting on the memories of two restaurants and haven’t had a chance to write the reviews! Sorry for the delay.

Let’s start with Bang Bang Mongolian Grill in Canton.  This new restaurant took half the space of the old Austin Grill in the Can Company, and I personally think is a very welcome addition. The food is completely customizable and affordable, especially when you bought the LivingSocial coupon for two bowls and two glasses of wine (or beer) for $15! We also added one bowl for the kids to share, which comes with a child sized drink, and two children’s frozen yogurts. AND kids eat free on Tuesdays, so that’s pretty awesome. Less awesome is that we weren’t there on a Tuesday.

We went with a couple friends who had the same coupon, which made it easier to navigate the line with kids. The décor is nice, clean, and casual, which is always nice to see when you're dining out with your small fries. When you enter, there are directions on how the restaurant works as you walk to the cash register. You pay for your bowl, a drink, and your dessert (if you’re so inclined) and proceed along the raw buffet line, filling your dinner bowl with whatever catches your fancy. They have an assortment of proteins like beef, chicken, shellfish, fish fish, tofu, etc. and you can choose whatever combination  you have a hankering for on that particular day. Then you come to the vegetables. They have mixed vegetables of different styles – stir fry, teriyaki, pad thai – to make it easy, or the individual vegetables for your own customization. You can also taste the different sauces before committing and you also add your own spices. After you select everything, you bring it to the grill, choose your starch (or salad for those watching carbs) and they stir fry everything right before your eyes. 

Piece of advice here – if you think filling to the top of your bowl is a good deal, think again. Once it’s cooked down, it’s less than you expect. Everyone at the table (but me) had their contents balancing precariously over the tops of their bowls before cooking and were more satisified than I was.

Mine is the bowl on the left. They gave me an extra bowl so the kids could split L's creation

A huge plus of this was letting L pick out what was going in her (and her brother’s) bowl. I found she was more adventurous with her food when she had more control. She was happy to eat pink fish without balking when it was her idea!

The yogurt bar was a definite win!! The yogurt itself was very good in the regular chocolate, vanilla, twist variety and I love adding my own toppings. Pieces of Hershey bars, mini chocolate chip cookies, Reese’s, and the rest of the standards were there and were fresh and delicious!

Overall, the food was really pretty good and reasonably priced. The added bonus of having a kid not say “Yuck, I don’t like blah blah” before it’s even at the table was worth the price of admission alone!  Even though it was self-serve, I found the employees to be very helpful even after we were seated.

The only drawback is if you’re there with two kids by yourself, it would be really quite difficult juggling them and filling your bowls. This is definitely a multiple adult venture if you have more than one child with you. It’s also easier to drink booze when there are more adults than children. Luckily this restaurant is in walking distance.

Mr. B cares nothing for chop sticks.

And for those who care and might be doing something crazy like, say, P90X* (hence the lack of reviews), it was one of the healthier options around since you have complete control over your quantities and every single thing that goes in the bowl. If I could eat there once a week, I would.

L trying out her chop sticks.

One thing I had heard, but can’t vouch for since we were there pretty early so I have no idea if this is true or not – The later you go, the spicier your food might end up because of all the different food cooked on the grill. Though they do wipe it down, so take that with a grain of salt.

And yet again I forgot to check for changing tables! They did have high chairs, though.

Kid Friendliness :  3.5/5 (only because it would be hard if you were outnumbered by kids here!)

Service : 3/5 (since it’s mostly help yourself)

Prices: 4/5

Taste: 4/5

* And Yes, I’m aware I’m not technically supposed to have things like wine or frozen yogurt with yummy toppings.

Next up: Langermanns for lunch during Restaurant Week. YUM!