#Mongolian barbecue

[siristaci]

I need to tell y'all about this Mongolian barbeque place in my city that was... something special.

But first, a little about me. I hate trying new things, had a really bad immune system (I promise that's relevant), have a hard time processing accents that makes talking to people with heavy accents anxiety-inducing, and another thing I was going to point out but can't remember right now. Hopefully I'll remember before posting this and amend it.

It's been closed for a few years, so you also need to keep in mind that my memories of this place are, at most recent, about 8 years old.

Y'all. Once I was finally convinced to try this place (about 17 years ago), I fucking loved it. Went as often as I could afford.

There were always only two people running the place- an Asian woman, who acted as the host/waitress/cashier and spoke just enough heavily-accented english to get by, and an Asian man, who was the cook and spoke even less english.

The place was dark and dirty. There's not a chance in hell it ever passed health inspections. The back corner of the dining area was difficult to see from the front (impossible when you first walked in and were day-blind) and no dining customers were ever sat there. There were, however, usually at least a couple of businessmen looking guys sat there who, if they spoke to each other at all, were too quiet to be heard from just a few tables away. They were rarely eating; just sitting there doing idk what. I didn't look often nor long because I just had this overwhelming feeling that it was best not to pay too much attention to them.

When you arrived, the woman would chat with you about what's been going on in your life since she last saw you (she had an excellent memory, even remembering me a few years since the last time I'd been there) as you were seated at booths whose seats no longer had functional springs and asked what you want to drink. You had to ask what drinks they had, since there was no menu. And no sign saying how much anything cost at all.

The food was set out in a buffet style. You'd load up a bowl with meat, veggies, and sauce, and hand it off to the guy, who would cook it and give it back to you. How long had the food been sitting out? Who knows? I went at various times of the day and never saw anything get refilled.

But the food was good, and I never got sick, despite the aforementioned terrible immune system. It was a tad pricey, but definitely a worthwhile treat.

After it closed, I was heartbroken and needed to find a replacement. I went to reddit to see if anyone had any recommendations. Or any idea why it had closed. Sure, it never had many customers at any given time. I think the most tables filled (by dining customers anyway) at once was 3 out of the maybe 12 available. But that had been the case for the 15 years I'd been going. Declining patronage couldn't be the answer.

I couldn't find a ton of references to the place; just a handful of posts asking the same questions I was. Any good replacements? And what happened?

But the responses were many. A few comments recommending the same three places. A lot of people sad to learn that it was closed or reminiscing about how good it was and how long it had been there- while most experiences had the same negative things to say as I did (health code concerns and a wariness of the men in the back), nearly everyone agreed that it had been a great place.

And there was a universally agreed-on theory that it had been a money-laundering scheme that was no longer needed.

Ah. Yeah, that makes sense, actually.

But here's the funny part. Recently, another post reminded me of this place. And I wanted to read those reviews again, but I didn't want to use reddit because, well.

So I just googled it. It's hard to find any reference to it at all since it's closed, never had a website, and it's name was similar to a national (maybe global? I don't care enough to look it up) fast food chain. All I could really find were old Yelp reviews.

Nobody on Yelp liked this place.

There were only two good reviews. One was just the same "LOVE this place! GREAT food and great atmosphere! Other things in all caps and lots of exclamation marks!" you see everywhere, and the other was this.

Y'all

Anyway, I just find it funny that everyone- myself, the people I introduced it to, the people I know who already knew of it, reddit, and yelp- all had pretty much the same experience, but reddit (and the people I know)- who all agreed it was sketchy all around- loved it and yelp- who only had health code concerns- hated it.

[rubberbandballqueen]

awww yeah i'm makin TUMBLR MEATLOAF tonight!!!!!!!!

[songforaname]

it's less than a week until my birthday

amazing

[foodwithrecipes]

Methi Murgh. Fenugreek may contribute to heart health by helping control cholesterol levels. It may reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol levels while maintaining or increasing HDL cholesterol levels. Read full recipe https://foodrecipesoffical.blogspot.com/2023/11/471-healthy-food-recipe-methi-murgh-its.html… http://foodrecipesoffical.blogspot.com

[yummies-tummy-food-blog]

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

i am obSESSSSED with how you write coop 🫶 but i have to ask.. do you have any thoughts about maximus? 👀 my boy needs some loving..

General Maximus Headcanons

(NSFW under the cut)

SFW:

It was so nice to get to see this cutie pie experience a little bit of pampering when he and Lucy were staying in Vault 4. Here are some other mundane pleasures that I think he's never experienced but would greatly enjoy: the concept of a DVR, playing literally any video game on a nice PC setup, one of those solid four-poster beds, Mongolian barbecue, a full body massage at a legit massage parlor (that is, if he could be trusted to not sin all over the place in the middle of it a la that virgin guy Luanne almost married in that one episode of King of the Hill).

Zero ability to gauge friendliness. If you're nice to him, he's suspicious that you want something from him/are trying to manipulate him (or that you wanna fuck him once someone explains the concept of proper flirting to him). Struggles to make friends that feel genuine. Yearns for a type of companionship he's never had before just like he yearns for a safe home he's never really known.

Seeing him watch TV in Vault 4 made me think about what sort of things he'd like to watch, and I think he seems like he'd really like slice-of-life/laugh track type sitcoms. Something comforting and nice where people's problems are less "life and death" and more about showing that they love one another. This man would love, like, Ted Lasso.

He's real touchy about his brand scar (the whole Titus thing in general, actually). Best not to ask too many questions about it and keep quiet if he brings it up.

Much like Cooper, this man is such a sucker for inside jokes. He wants to be included so badly that feeling like he's in on a bit will make him SO happy. He'll run the joke into the ground in his excitement, but that's okay.

NSFW:

We've seen that he obviously lacks comprehensive sex education, and I think that would be a breeding ground for the guy to have a bunch of very niche kinks.

All sorts of things you do get him worked up for reasons he absolutely doesn't understand, and half the time he doesn't even really realize that what he's feeling is arousal/sexual frustration, so you may find that, early on, he gets annoyed and instead asks you to stop doing those things in front of him because they "bother him". These include: pulling your hair up away from your neck/face, licking your fingers when you eat, resting your head in his lap when he's sitting down.

Doesn't jerk off and as a result has insane nocturnal emissions about once a week. Well, he thinks they're nocturnal emissions, once someone explains to him what that is. He's actually humping his mattress to completion most of the times it happens. He assumes this happens to literally everyone.

I think he would love mutual masturbation as a low-stakes way to share some intimacy with you without having to worry about touching or being touched "right". Plus, it would be a good opportunity to study the way you like to be stimulated without feeling like a creep.

MASSIVE mommy kink. It just makes too much sense. He so deeply desires that sense of safety and unconditional acceptance that comes with having a proper 'home' that I think if you babied him a little, he'd be yours forever. Absolutely just wants to bury his face into your breasts and comfort suckle while you jerk him off. This man calls you "mama" when he cums.

[akanemnon]

Do you think/Would you say that Kris is good with knives?

And if so, how about their cooking?

Cuz, ngl, I often visualise Kris in like a full chef’s outfit standing at the grill-table-thing at those restaurants, where the chef also does all those cool tricks and flips with the knives and spatulas.

Hmmmm… a cook off between Mongolian Barbecue(?) Chef Kris and Papyrus…?

I always liked the idea of Kris knowing how to cook and being fairly good at it. We do know from Chapter 2 that they know how to bake. So it's fair to assume that Toriel also taught them how to cook. Maybe to steer them into the right direction of eating normal food. But the only thing that did, is open up a whole new world to Kris of preparing food combinations that should never ever be even thought of. But yes, they totally could do those sick knife tricks those chefs can do.

[gummy-axolotl]

While I was walking home from class there was a guy dressed as one of those inflatable flappy arm guys and he had a cart and was selling Mongolian rice bowls. So I had some Mongolian barbecue chicken and rice. It was delicious

[jacksulkes]

August 1 - Lotus Pond and Qishan Train Station

The first thing we did today was go to the Lotus Pond. The pond is surrounded by 15-20 temples, so we went to a few of them. The first one was under renovation, but we were still able to walk inside the tiger statue and walk out of the dragon statue. It was on stilts on the water and had a zigzag bridge connecting it to land. The second one was also on stilts on the water, but it had a bigger dragon statue with whiskers. It also had a bridge going to another temple in the center of the pond. We went to a group lunch after the Lotus Pond. It was Mongolian barbecue, but each table also had a hot pot. The food was all very good. Then, we went to Qishan train station, which is an old train station. It is not used anymore. There were train cars outside of the historic building. Later on, for dinner, two of the guys came with me to Ruifeng Night Market. This night market seemed like it had the most stuff out of any night market. It was shaped like a grid with night market stretching in every direction. Most of the other ones were down one street. I first got barbecue grilled squid again, and it was good again of course. Then, I got a meat pie, which is like a bun filled with meat and scallions. I have also gotten these before. I got two more things that I hadn’t tried before, however. We have seen several Turkish food and ice cream stands here and there in Taiwan. We found a Turkish shawarma wrap stand here, so we tried it. It was very good, and the young Turkish men that served us were very nice. Then, I tried a Thai banana pancake with chocolate sauce, which was also good.

Academic Reflection:

On the way to the Lotus Pond, Peter taught us about how many temples surrounded it. He also taught us about the history of Daoism and Confucianism in China and Taiwan. He said that some Confucius thought is being challenged in the modern society of Taiwan, such as men obeying their mothers-in-law. Peter also told us stories he was told as a child, where the moral of the story was a Confucius teaching. Peter told us at the temple on the water that some people buy fish or turtles and let them free near the temple so they can go to heaven.

We learned in the reading, “Religion in Taiwan at the End of the Japanese Colonial Period,” that there was and is Daoism, Buddhism, and an offshoot of Buddhism called Zhaijiao. At Qishan, I learned that the train station was built by the Japanese. The reading spoke of political dislocation, and this building is evidence of that. The reading taught us that the Japanese were good for Taiwan because they helped modernize, including building railways.

[the-ultimate-tournament]

this video VS Elroy Hits the Pavement

warning for the video: very bright colors

to help you choose:

video: "Beef Stroganoff. Beef Bourguignon. Irish Beef Stew. Beef Brisket. Chateau Brion. Saubraten. Roast Beef. Catalonian Beef Ragu. Mongolian Beef. Chicken Fried Steak. Steak Diane. Grilled Steaks Balsamico. Hamburgers. Sizzling Beef. Spicy Braised Beef. Barbecued Beef Ribs. Beef Wellington. Pepper Beef. Beef Jerky. Beef with Broccoli. Beef Burritos. Beef Fajitas. Beef Tacos."

elroy hits the pavement: "Video game that apparently only me and my brother played. You're a kid who's school science project hinges on making your lazy retired police dog Blue become more energetic (with Science™!), but then the dog gets kidnapped by the mob and you have to sneak around their hideout and rescue him. If you don't find him you'll fail science class and be forced to go to summer school (The Worst). If the mob catches you, you die. At one point you have to make a battery with orange juice to power a giant drill machine. It's wild and no one I've talked to has ever heard of it."

[detective-and-dreamer]

sending condolences from the pits of adulthood (it's tax time 💀💀)

question for your ocs! if they could magically bring any mediocre modern-day chain restaurant into the neath, which would they choose??

(-@neathyingenue)

thank you! (god yeah, taxes suck - this was the first year in a while we didn't owe anything, so hopefully yours go well too!)

Very interesting question which also made me put a lot more thought into their food preferences than I had before! Also, my knowledge/opinions of mediocre restaurants does not extend to the UK, so this magic has 2/3 of them stuck eating American stuff ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lenora would pick something that's open 24 hours, because she's often either up for work or just...not sleeping well in general. Catch her in an IHOP downing garbage coffee at 3am.

Selina would go for a bakery of some kind. This is the one I'm handing to the Europeans because ours kinda suck; it would be a Paul. Those places have saved my life in and around airports, and she would love them.

Emory's would be HuHot (a Mongolian barbecue restaurant). Vaguely similar flavor profiles to what his mother makes, and also pretty much her style of cooking - just throw a bunch of stuff into a pan/on a grill and hope for the best.

[reikunrei]

29 n 56! ✨️🌿

29. favourite film(s)

oooh my number 1 comfort/nostalgia movie is spirit: stallion of the cimarron! but other favs include: dinosaur, the planet earth documentaries (does that count? i'm saying it does), princess mononoke, train to busan, lord of the rings (all 3 of them, no i cannot choose just one), aaaand high school musical lol

56. favourite food(s)

i really really love lots of different mexican dishes (tho i do have to make them into White People versions bc i can't handle that much spice) but i really love fajitas!! specifically chicken or shrimp :] i also really love pesto pasta, esp w cherry tomatoes. and i really like bell peppers!! i love eating them raw but also love grilling them on a barbecue or tossing them in a pan w some salt n pepper to throw onto some avocado toast. oh! and there's this mongolian beef recipe i've made several times that i really love, and a chicken + sage + butternut squash + green bean dish i've made lots of times that i really enjoy !!

get to know me, pick some numbers

[foodwithrecipes]

Keema (minced meat) and Egg Roti. Eggs make a great breakfast. “Hard-boiled eggs are a nutritious breakfast, but I think it's a healthy way to eat a variety of foods,” Read the full recipe https://foodrecipesoffical.blogspot.com/2023/11/469-healthy-food-recipe-keema-and-egg.html… http://foodrecipesoffical.blogspot.com

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Beijing

The past week or so has been spent in Beijing with my best friend from college, Irene. Irene has been living in Beijing since 2019 and teaches English at a high school here. I’ve really enjoyed getting to see her neck of the woods and have been so grateful to have her as a guide because China, especially Beijing, is very overwhelming.

I’ve been to Beijing before, in 2018, but it was just for a day and a half and things have changed a lot since then. Beijing is definitely comparable at least in my experience to Mexico City. It is absolutely enormous and a beast to get around in, but there is so much to see and do and every neighborhood is so interesting and different. After being here a week I’ve barely scratched the surface, but I’ll go through by day.

Day 1, Sunday

We spent most of the day traveling from Macau to Beijing and getting ourselves situated. I was very nervous about flying into Mainland China as they are quite strict at border control and only very recently reopened the border to foreigners. Things only recently opened back up about 3 months ago. I made it through without a problem though and we made our way to the place I’m renting for the week. China does not allow foreigners to stay with residents without going through a long and arduous registration process, so I’m staying in an apartment about 25 minutes away from Irene, which is considered very close by Beijing standards.

Absolutely everything in China is done via apps and QR codes. Everything from riding the bus to ordering food in a restaurant to getting a taxi to paying your water bill; it is all done via apps that are mainly in Chinese. Thank goodness for Irene helping me get all the right apps set up showing me the ropes. After a week here I’ve finally figured out how to do most things by myself. It is certainly very convenient, you don’t need to talk to anyone or even carry around a wallet in most places.

In the evening we did a food tour with Lost Plate tours, it was really cool because they took us around to a lot of off the beaten track restaurants you’d never be able to find on your own and we tried some really amazing dishes.

All of the restaurants were in the Wudaoying Hutong, one of the historic neighborhoods in central Beijing. In total we visited 4 restaurants.

We tried 炸酱面 (zhajiangmian) hand pulled noodles with savory plum sauce and fresh vegetables (my personal favorite), 烤肉(kao rou) old school Mongolian style barbecue cooked with hot briquettes right on your table with a flat grill top. The style originated with soldiers building cook-fires literally inside their helmets, laying their shields on top, and cooking on that. We also had 门钉肉饼 (men ding rou bing) gigantic pork buns, fried on both sides and 春饼 (chun bing) spring pancakes with a variety of fillings. We rode on rickshaws around the hutong to get in between the different restaurants, it was so much fun. By the time we finished at a brewery after the fourth restaurant, we were absolutely stuffed, and made our way back for the night. Beijing is in a heat wave right now, with temperatures ranging from 95-104 degrees every day for the past 2.5 weeks, but in the evening in the hutongs it finally cooled down a bit and it was really lovely to walk around and see the neighborhood.

Day 2, Monday

Today was a lot more laid back. Irene had to work today, that meant that I stayed in my apartment in the air conditioning to rest and recover from the last crazy few days. I ventured out a bit in the afternoon to a nearby mall to find food. Malls in Asia are no joke, they are like small cities with every single kind of store you can think of. In the evening Irene and I walked back to that same mall and ate at a Mexican restaurant, then we walked a bit and explored the Chaoyang area I’m staying in. Even this one small area is enormous, we’ve been averaging about 20,000 steps a day even without doing all that much today. We saw the local river, the Liangma River, and visited another mall. It was very beautiful.

Day 3, Tuesday

Today was another rest day, I did not leave my room until 5pm today. It’s hard feeling like I’m missing out on things when I take rest days; but I’m in China for about 3 more weeks, and know that if I don’t take these rest days I will burn out from exhaustion very quickly. Especially with our trend of walking 8+ miles every day in 90+ degree weather.

In the evening we met up with a former student of Irene’s, Vicki, for Beijing style hot-pot. If you’re not familiar with hot pot it is exactly as it sounds, you’re given a hot pot of broth or hot water and tons of ingredients that you can add in as you choose to cook in the pot and take out as they become ready to eat. Beijing style is a little different because instead of being heated from underneath on a hot plate or stove; a very tall burning hot cylinder is with hot briquettes is placed directly inside the pot, with a little chimney at the top for the smoke to escape. It’s hard to describe, so see the video above to see what it’s like. We ate so much food and were absolutely stuffed.

Later we walked to the Central Business District (known as CBD in Beijing 😆). There were tons of skyscrapers and interesting buildings, its where all the major Chinese corporations have their headquarters. We took photos at a famous building known as the “Pants” building because it looks literally like a pair of pants.

Day 4, Wednesday

Today was my last partial rest day for a while. Irene got off work early today so in the afternoon I met up with her and we went to 798, which is the former industrial area turned trendy artists’ neighborhood. There were a lot of abandoned factories here that have been turned into artists’ residences, studios, and galleries and is near Beijing’s major art colleges. There was a lot of public art that was cool to see. We ate at a giant shaved ice place and ordered way too much food. Who knew ice was so filling 😂

Later I got to visit Irene’s apartment, and then she packed a bag to come stay the night at my place as we had an early start tomorrow. We ordered dim sum delivery and watched dramas which in my book is an excellent evening.

Day 5, Thursday

Today was spent visiting Irene’s school. Back when I was teaching university level English in Mexico City, Irene was able to visit me and spend the day at my school so it was really cool to do it the other way around today.

Irene’s school is absolutely enormous. It is a K-12 private boarding school on the outskirts of Beijing. It reminded me a lot of a US college campus. Most of the students except for the young students and students who come from other provinces live on campus during the week and go home on the weekends. Most of these students plan on attending college abroad at prestigious universities in places like the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia after graduating. They get English instruction from a very young age and are thus very fluent by the time they graduate.

Irene teaches grade 10-12 English, with between 8-20 students per class. I was amazed by how self-sufficient and responsible the majority of the students were (compared to my absolutely feral first graders back home). They were doing a study of the story The Most Dangerous Game and then created characters to role play in a DnD campaign based on the story; which I thought was really cool. Irene’s prep period was right before the lunch break, so we had a full 2.5 hours for lunch. We ate Xinjiang cuisine at a mall nearby the school, Xinjiang is in northwestern China bordering Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan so the cuisine was a unique mix of Middle Eastern and Chinese food; it was really really good. We didn’t realize we were eating there on the Eid holiday though and the restaurant was packed.

Later after teaching 3 classes Irene introduced me to a student of hers that wants to be an elementary school teacher after graduating. I hope I didn’t scare her off too much from the field. It was really cool but weird to talk with someone that age who is considering colleges and careers; I’m 29 and still feel like a kid most of the time, but thinking back to being 16/17 and thinking about how much I’ve learned and grown and experienced since then was very eye opening. Irene and I gave her a lot of advice about college etc. and we remembered being 21 and having all these anxieties about graduating and finding a job and all that and wow it is crazy how time flies and we are able to actually give advice about that stuff, it feels like just yesterday we were stressing about the exact same things she is stressing about.

In the evening we went to one of Irene’s favorite restaurants, The Taco Bar. Way back in 2013 Irene studied abroad in Beijing and was missing the easy access to Mexican cuisine we have in the US (specifically burritos) and went on a legendary search we now refer to as The Burrito Quest where she searched out and tried every single Mexican restaurant in Beijing, which is harder than it sounds. The Taco Bar didn’t have burritos, but it was hands down the winner of best Mexican restaurant in Beijing according to Irene. She has been coming here since 2013 even when their original location closed down, to their new location, and through the pandemic. We had an enormous amount of food and again ended the day extremely stuffed.

We had planned on this being our goodbye dinner, but we had discovered that Irene’s apartment had had a power cut. Rather than spend the night in darkness in 103 degree heat she decided to stay at my place again. But this meant embarking on an odyssey across Beijing to her apartment to get her stuff since she is traveling again this weekend; and then going back to my place for the air conditioning; this journey on Beijing public transport at rush hour during a heat wave was a major feat.

After 19,000 steps and a 2.5 hour trek we finally collapsed back at my place to sleep.

Day 6 Friday

Early in the morning I said goodbye to Irene as she headed off to work, she is traveling this weekend so she was going to the airport straight from work. I’ll really miss traveling with her, although I love solo travel, the best way to travel I think is with a close friend.

Today was my sightseeing day. I’ve been to Beijing before and have seen The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Great Wall before; and given the heat had no desire to confront the crowds there again.

So on Irene’s recommendation today I visited the Summer Palace. It is an enormous complex where the emperor would visit in the summer months in northern Beijing. It is much smaller than the main palace at the Forbidden City in central Beijing, but even so it was enormous. The emperor had it constructed when the capital of China was moved to Beijing in the 1300’s and many elements of the palace were modeled after areas in other places in China that the emperor liked.

There was a shopping street modeled after a town in southern China that I’m visiting later on in this trip. It is famous for being built on the water and it was my favorite area in the palace. There was an enormous manmade lake that was built to be Beijing’s emergency water supply and modeled after a famous lake in Kunming and was used to train naval officers. It was truly enormous. The land excavated from building the lake was used to create a 200ft tall hill upon which the palace itself was constructed. There were also literally thousands of smaller structures built throughout the massive forest grounds. I sat next to an old man on a bench for about 40 minutes while I ate a snack and did some people watching. Everyone else was moving so much and there were so many people but me and that old man were just vibing.

Most of the palace was looted by the British in the late 1800s, but the buildings themselves and natural structures were in amazing condition and it was really cool to see, albeit the heat.

Then I headed over to Nanluoguxiang hutong, another historic neighborhood in central Beijing. This is considered to be rather touristy, most of the original buildings were destroyed in renovations of the city, but were reconstructed to look like traditional neighborhoods in Imperial China, called hutongs. It is a very beautiful area, with streams and lots of people walking about. I visited here in 2018 and it was my favorite area of Beijing to just walk around in. I had some lunch and explored for a while and did some shopping.

My final stop of the day was Baiyunguan, the White Cloud Temple in southern Beijing. It is one of the oldest Taoist temples in China and is nearby a famous Taoist College. By this point in the day I was pretty exhausted from the 103 degree heat and having spent about 6 hours on public transportation and walking in crowded tourist sites. It was incredible to walk into the temple from the loud crowded street and immediately felt how calm and quiet it was. It was literally completely silent except for the wind and the birds.

I walked around the temple for a while. Taoism is one of several traditional Chinese religions, which work in synch with each other. Many Chinese people practice elements of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and animism. Taoism is all about finding balance and peace in the natural world. The temples themselves are actually called 观 (guan) which translates to look at or observe. This comes from the Taoist belief that understanding comes from looking at or observing the natural world, so the temples are places to look and observe. There were lots of very beautiful areas, some statues of deities people offered incense to, and lots of displays of art and calligraphy. It was very peaceful and a nice way to end the day.

I made my way back and collapsed for the rest of the day.

That’s it for Beijing, I’m amazed if you made it all the way through this very long post. It was great to spend time here. I am writing this post on a plane ride to my next stop, Zhangjiajie in Hunan province in south central China. Stay tuned!

[kwankapang]

After my recent trip to Mongolia, I can confirm that the famous take-out dish, "Mongolian beef," is not served in Mongolia. Mongolian cuisine is simple, often involving boiling and barbecuing on hot stones. 

Despite this, I still love Mongolian beef's flavorful combination of soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and sugar. It's best enjoyed right after frying when the beef is still crispy.

Let's try this recipe, and I hope you will love it

Please download the recipe and read the full details at https://simpledeliciouseats.com/mongolian-beef/