Mongolian BBQ is completely divorced from the ethnic cuisine of Mongolia, which is heavy in meat and fat and (within my limited knowledge) not very flavorful. I’ve watched a food vlog and … yeah, it’s fatty lamb boiled in plain broth. Food is subjective, but I’m sure that wasn’t what you were thinking.
What we know as Mongolian BBQ was actually invented in Taiwan on the 1950′s and given that name for a pretty arbitrary reasons. (As an aside how many food names with a country name are actually from that place? Usually it’s tenuous connections at best like how Hawaiian pizza was named because of pineapples and actually invented in Canada).
In the mid-90s I spent a week in Mongolia. I was a child, and a somewhat picky eater so that may have clouded my judgement, but I thought the food was very bad. I remember that every meal involved some kind of yoghurt, which I think may have been made from horse or yak milk and in hindsight I now think was mildly alcoholic. I loved yoghurt, I hated that stuff. Indeed, I ended up subsisting on crisp packets, apples and fasting for the last few days, and the fact my parents allowed this said a lot about what they thought of the food.
Ah yes, I neglected to update this copy of the post to acknowledge that explicitly. I’m definitely not referring to the authentic thing, which everyone who speaks about it says is a hard pass.
Mongolian BBQ is completely divorced from the ethnic cuisine of Mongolia, which is heavy in meat and fat and (within my limited knowledge) not very flavorful. I’ve watched a food vlog and … yeah, it’s fatty lamb boiled in plain broth. Food is subjective, but I’m sure that wasn’t what you were thinking.
What we know as Mongolian BBQ was actually invented in Taiwan on the 1950′s and given that name for a pretty arbitrary reasons. (As an aside how many food names with a country name are actually from that place? Usually it’s tenuous connections at best like how Hawaiian pizza was named because of pineapples and actually invented in Canada).
In the mid-90s I spent a week in Mongolia. I was a child, and a somewhat picky eater so that may have clouded my judgement, but I thought the food was very bad. I remember that every meal involved some kind of yoghurt, which I think may have been made from horse or yak milk and in hindsight I now think was mildly alcoholic. I loved yoghurt, I hated that stuff. Indeed, I ended up subsisting on crisp packets, apples and fasting for the last few days, and the fact my parents allowed this said a lot about what they thought of the food.
Ah yes, I neglected to update this copy of the post to acknowledge that explicitly. I’m definitely not referring to the authentic thing, which everyone who speaks about it says is a hard pass.