Letter G. – Gobi Grill!
Here it is. We must say, we went back and forth on trying to decide where to go. We looked through the small list we had of non-chains. One place we almost tried was Grinder Man. Read some good reviews on the place but in all honesty, we’re not big on sandwiches and subs. Next up was Gindi Thai and Japanese over on west 21st street. We love sushi but we’ve also gone there plenty of times that the mystique was ruined. Had a coupon for a buy one get one free meal there too. Don’t take that as a sign that Gindi isn’t worth going to, we just weren’t feeling it.
Then we nearly went to Great Harvest Bread Company but lo and behold, the place is a chain. We never knew!
So let me show you the menu pic of the place we ended up going to.
Yes, its a Mongolian Grill. And no, its not Genghis Grill. Our place of choice was Gobi Grille (http://www.gobigrille.com/)
2319 North Ridge Road
Wichita, KS 67205-1033
(316) 425-7999
Gobi Grille is located on Ridge Road just north of 21st street. Its the only non-chain of the three Wichita Mongolian grills. Locally owned and independently operated. A Mongolian grill is pretty much creating your own stir-fry. You select your type(s) of meat, your vegetables, seasonings, sauces, and starches.
I’ve been to the other two Mongolian Grills in Wichita (Genghis and HuHot), this was Tiffany’s first outing to one. She was rather hesitant because of the worry of messing up a bowl and not liking it. I told her, worst case, I’ll finish the bowl she made unless it was full of cheese and/or Mr. Kapow’s DragonFire wings.
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| Sausage Party |
Server comes out and gets our drink orders. Just water today, have to hydrate ourselves! Nice lady, pleasant, friendly. Could not ask for more relaly. So we go up to make our bowls. Tiffany is grabbing some chicken and shrimp. I settle for pork, marinated beef, shrimp and calimari. We each season them with cajun spices, teriyaki spices, all sorts of different ones. Step up to the vegetables. They have tomatoes, pineapple (is that a vegetable?), lettuce, water chestnuts (which have ZERO taste!), green onions, peppers, etc. For whatever reason that day, they had no mushroooms which I found awkward.
Then its over to the sauces. They have about 8 or so difference sauces to choose from. You can make it spicy, light, whatever. Tiffany goes for simple sauces like Gobiyaki. Get it? Its Gobi Grille’s version of Teriyaki. If I ever open up a grille, you can definitely expect an Eddyaki. I got for spicy garlic, gobi glaze, anything I can get my hands on that makes it hot.
We head over to the grill and hand our bowl to the cook who asks us for our name and type of starch. Tiffany asks for linguini and fried rice. I go for white rice and linguini.
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| Soup of the Day |
Leave that area, notice some soup that’s out. Its twice baked potato soup. At least I think it was. We ate there a couple days ago and my memory is already giving out on me. So we grab one bowl to share to see what its like. Note, if you eat the soup you have to pay the “All you can eat” price. The soup was just decent. Nothing special. Kind of hoping for something a little more “asiany” like hot and sour soup, wonton soup, eggdrop soup. Nope. Its potato soup. Had a very cheesy taste to it that I thought was overpowering. But, you don’t go to a Mongolian Grill for their potato soup. So we’ll disregard that from our rating.
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| You can just feel the heartburn coming! |
The server brings out our food and we dig in. The one thing we noticed was missing was my white rice and Tiffany’s linguini. We didn’t bother asking for server to fix it. Wasn’t worth the hassle. The linguini is nice. I definitely prefer that over the rice that she had. Its about as good as the udon noodles over at Hu Hot. After eating a few bites, its honestly nothing overly special. Your typical mongolian grill you can find anywhere…… except this is the only one on the west side of town.
We went a second time and prepared similar bowls to what we made last time with a few differences. We once again asked for two starches to see if we’d get it. And we actually did the second go around.
So in closing, The meat seemed fresh, the service was friendly, the time it took to get your food from the grill was on par with what you’d find anywhere else. But like we figured, nothing special. It didn’t stand out above the rest of the grills in Wichita. For all you can eat for dinner, it runs $11.99 and for just one bowl, its $9.99. So about $25 for two for all you can eat.
So what does that mean for our super scientific rating. We actually both gave it the same scores out of five stars………..3. This was about as average as you can get. Not great, not bad. Just is what it is.
Next up should be Letter H. But before that we’re having a special birthday outing night where we are choosing any place in Wichita to go to. What will it be? We’re headed there tonight to review it! Be on the lookout for that!
Happy Earth Day
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