Mongolian food

Years ago I went to a Mongolian bbq place here in Canada... Fantastic food.

Now, I remember as an appetizer we had these kind of pancake things that had spring onions in them and you dipped them in ground chiles and soy.

What would these have been called? Any links to pix would be appreciated.

Tadada...

scallion pancakes

That sounds oddly like Korean food to me. (Mongolian food isn't usually 'fantastic') Was the meat mutton or beef? The pancake thingee (did it taste like it had sesame oil in it?) sounds like 'pajun'...

Sorry...forgot this.

The scallion pancakes were probably a Korean dish.

And at the Mongolian BBQ, they don't actually have Mongolian food.

From Wikipedia<blockquote>Quote
<hr>Mongolian barbecue (pinyin: Měnggǔ kǎoròu) is a restaurant style of stir frying meats and vegetables over a large, round, solid iron griddle that is as large as 2.5 m in diameter and can cook at temperatures as high as 300°C. Originally from Taiwan, it is neither Mongolian nor barbecue.
AND
Public relations material of the [BD's Mongolian Barbeque] chain claims that the preparation technique was modeled on a practice of the Mongol Empire, when soldiers would gather large quantities of meats and prepare them with their swords on their overturned shields over a large fire. However, there is no historical evidence for this theory, and most of the ingredients used as well as the preparation method are entirely unknown to the actual cuisine of Mongolia. In reality, "Mongolian barbecues" first appeared in Taiwan in the middle of the 20th century, inspired by the japanese-style teppanyaki which was popular there at the time.<hr></blockquote>I did have barbecued lamb in Chinese Mongolia (Inner Mongolia). It was very good, but was pretty much just Central Asian style. I also had Mongolian Hotpot which was very good. We were staying in yurts in a commune in the grasslands (this was the early 1980s and the Chinese were still trying to force the locals to stop being nomadic. I have a great photo of a guy on a bicycle herding camels.) The hotpot was very hot; it was heated with charcoal. (Like this. We used chopsticks to dip mutton slices and some veggies into a bland broth. At the end of the meal, noodles were dumped in the broth and we had soup. Hotpot is probably more common in Chinese Mongolia; although it originated with the mongols, it's more of a Chinese thing now. It's a very long story, but the whole meal was very alcohol fueled and the evening ended with us teaching the Mongolians and a group of Japanese tourists how to do the hokey pokey (an American children's dance).

Plain boiled mutton was a real treat if you enjoy overcooked, strong flavored meat in greasy, watery broth. Mongolians traditionally do not eat food seasoned with much other than salt and like a lot of Central Asians, prefer fatty foods because they need the calories in winter.

Calling this "Mongolian bbq" is really too flattering to Mongolian cuisine.

the pancake things aren't just Korean...they're all over eastern China and Taiwan. And yes, they are delicious. I know a guy in Taipei who works at a restaurant off Minsheng Donglu, and he rolls the green onion lengths in dough so they're like concentric tubes instead of layers, and puts in about four times as much garlic as everybody else. SO. GOOD. OH. MY. GOD.

Anyway Mongolian BBQ is not Mongolian, not even a little bit. It's about as authentic as General Tso's Chicken and orange sauce are to Chinese cuisine.

I quite like Mongolian food; though I've not been yet, I used to teach in the USA and had a lot of Mongolian immigrant students. One day we had a potluck and they made all sorts of tasty food that I can't pronounce. Most of it was heavy on the fat, the wheaty carbs and the seasoned meat. Yum. And yes, a very "Central Asian" or south Russian sort of feel to it, with a few Chinese garnishes.

Lovely everyone! Thanks!

If we could just get the Brit shift on TTYC to be this helpful, all would be well with the world.

I loved the hokey pokey story, nutrax. I hope those Mongols kept it up and that someday it gets collected as a Mongolian folk dance.

It was even better than that. The three groups (Mongolians, Japanese & Americans) took turns singing and dancing for hours. The Mongolians taught us some dance that involved waving flags around. They said it was traditional, but given the era it was probably "We Dance in Praise of the Workers, Students, and Peasants Who Are the Pillars of the Revolution." We did a sort of square dance while singing Turkey in the Straw. The Japanese sang, but didn't show us any dances. It was a real hoot watching the Japanese attempt the hokey pokey. They were all older folks who were trying to be good sports. We kept running into them on the trip. You could only travel in China as part of a group and I guess there was an official Inner Mongolia "circuit." At one dinner, the Japanese were singing "Happy Birthday to You" in Japanese to one of their group. We joined in. They were surprised that American would know this song.

More food related: We were required to have local guide in each place we visited, although the guide from our Hong Kong tour company was perfectly capable. In Shanghai, there was a shortage of English-speaking local guides (travel in China or Americans had just opened up). A school teacher who was fluent in English (I never learned how) was informed that he had developed a sudden urge to be a tour guide during the summer. He was a very nice man and an excellent guide. He was constantly wanting to take a break for a Coca Cola. None of us really liked Coke, so we kept turing him down and he always seemed very disappointed. Then the guide from the Hong Kong company tipped us off. Coke had just come to China but could only be bought with the equivalent of hard currency in Friendship Stores. Most Chinese were not allowed to possess the currency or to enter the stores. The local guy had fallen in love with Coke and buying it for foreigners was his only access to it. So we suddenly became Coke fiends. We'd usually ask for the bottle unopened go we could just give it to the guide.

Good stuff, nutrax.

One (not entirely traditional) version of the hokey pokey for the unenlightened.

And another even less so.

I have eaten at the Mongolie Grill in Whistler, Vancouver and Calgary and got sick at all three (in Calgary, twice!). I'm not saying don't do Mongolian barbecue... but try to avoid the Mongolie Grill family of restaurants.

We were totally underwhelmed by the Mongolian Grill part of the China King Buffet, in Little Rock, AR.
So far, I'll go to a Chinese buffet (The Beijing Buffet in So. San Francisco was above average) but I don't see the point of waiting in line in those places to have your foods cooked in front of you. There's food already made!

There are a couple of those 'Mongolian' places on Broadway-if the one OP is talking about was in Vancouver I walked by it this afternoon.

It's a gawdawful greasy mess made on a grubby/rusty piece of sheet metal-one has to either tough or stupid or both to eat crap made like that-Yechhh!!

On the other hand, Taiwanese-style teppanyaki (which is made the same way, but on a stainless steel flat top grill) is bloody amazing.

Was it the Mongolian Grill in Edmonton, islandboi (since moved 3 or 4 times and closed for health issues)?
It was very good at the time....there is a Mongolian fast food joint now on 178th that is pretty good.
What you describe are called green onion cakes here and are a staple item at many festivals, food courts and restaurants ranging from Chinese to Vietnamese to Thai to Indian. It is a bit of a local phenomenen.

most look much like this, though they take many forms