Gobi Mongolian Grill

Went in for a meal on a Thursday night at 4:20pm. Bummed I just missed the lunch prices which are until 4:00pm. I love that they do not close between lunch and dinner but just have a cut off time for the lunch price. The place only had two other tables with people at them and I was able to navigate the food bar quickly. I was sitting down with my cooked meal within 7 minutes. The waitress was prompt and never let the dirty dishes pile up at my table. It was a good meal and I was in and out within 30 minutes. The floors around the food bar where there were not any rugs on them very slippery from spills. That was the only hiccup with my experience with this place.

Hey, I think Gobi is great. If you’ve ever been to Chang’s Mongolian Grill, you know that it’s a pretty undesirable place most of the time. People are slobs and 99% of the time it’s a goddamn mess… food everywhere, tons all up in the meat/​veggies. Ugh.
Granted, this probablu happens at Gobi… but they’re very quick to clean it up. In fact, the restaurant itself is pretty well put together and in my opinion clean. They have several different options for meat including the basics (lamb, seafood, chicken, beef, etc) AND marinated meat such as teriyaki beef and chicken. I think this is great. They also have a salad bar and other options (during dinner) such as kung pao chicken, orange chicken, wontons and fried rice. This, however, isn’t really great and I don’t recommend diverting from the buffet. To top it off, they have a ridiculous amount of spices you can put on your dish and other sauces like sweet chili sauce.
My two bugaboos: The bar service is just beyond slow — getting a beer is like asking a server to provide their first born child to you. AND… they don’t have as many veggie options as I’d like.
Most importantly, it’s affordable. Not that I think the comparisons are insanely expensive, but for the quality and experience you get versus the other restaurants, ~$ 25 for two dinners really isn’t bad. They also give you $ 2 off coupons every time.
Definitely would check out Gobi — you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Great Mongolian Grill spot. The food was delicious with some great marinated meat choices, and the restaurant is a bit more upscale in look than many other places.

This place is gorgeous! I have been to other Mongolian grills in the area, but they’re usually pretty divey. I was impressed to see that this is a well kept restaurant with an attractive bar. My sister brought me here and we enjoyed our fill of meat and veggies. Honestly, noodles are just a waste of belly space! Their hot bar and sauce bar are superior to other Mongolian grills as well. I will definitely be returning!

Atmosphere is clean and nice. Could use more variety of vegetables. Sauces are watered down and you can hardly taste them when they are cooked into your food. The pre-​cooked food looks like it’s been sitting for days. High price for the quality.

My family and I enjoy coming here every once in a while — the customizing of your own bowl is a fun and convenient thing to do. The food quality is ok, the meat can sometimes be a bit tough and the extra pre-​cooked sides (wontons, egg rolls, fried rice, sweet and sour pork) they have out have sometimes been sitting under the warmers a bit too long. They have good beers on tap and the wait staff is pretty good. Don’t come here for stellar food cause you won’t get it; Come here for a different, unique, and fun dining experience, or to eat a lot of food.

To be honest, Mongolian Grill isn’t my cup of tea. I enjoy it alone or when in a hurry, but I just don’t care for the buffet format too much. I’d rather just have a cook know what’s good and order something. But, this is a really nice Mongolian. It has an inexpensive lunch and I enjoy coming here when I’m not in the mood for fast food, but still want to restaurant experience. If you do enjoy the Buffet format, this is the place to come.
TL:DR: Not a huge fan, but it’s okay for Mongolian.

My usual grill is a place closer to where I work in Portland, but being my daughters birthday, I wanted to take her somewhere close. Gobi was her choice. Let me tell you: it’s everything we expected and more.
Outside they advertise with billboards stating all you can eat, free birthdays, etc. Pretty standard fare for most other grills I’ve been to. Inside, they have a lot of decorations from Mongolian culture, a television in the rear of the dining room, and soft music playing in the backround (Sounded like usual pop radio).
The buffet was VERY clean. Cleaner than places I usually go, including my usual stomping ground. The variety was also way more than I expected. Beef, Pork, Shrimp, Lamb, Chicken, all old hat, but they also carried teriyaki chicken and spicy Gobi chicken, both which was a new to me and a welcome addition. The veggies and noodles were also all standard fare for what you’d expect. I was a little disappointed in the noodles however because after cooking they didn’t crisp up at all like I’m used to. They have a LOT of sauces to use, again, way more than I expected. The one sauce they lack however (which disappointed me a little) was lime juice. Otherwise, however, it met and exceeded my expectations.
They have a side bar with pre-​made dishes like Orange Chicken, Kung Pao chicken, these churro type chips, and a few others I don’t remember. I didn’t try any, but it looked good enough. They also serve soups and ice cream. My kids had both and both raved that they were delicious.
My 1 complaint is the grill area could be a bit cleaner. The floor surrounding the grill is black from charred debris, and the walls had a little bit of splatter from what I assume is cleaning the grill, While the grill itself was clean, and I didn’t see any loose food on the floor, they might want to clean the cooking area a bit more as that was a bit of a turn off for me. This was NOT a reflection of the buffet area however. The food was very fresh, clean, and very well kept. I would have gone 5 stars if not for this.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip. If your in the mood for Mongolian, you can’t go wrong trying Gobi. On a side note, I want to praise and thank our server Oscar. I spoke with him prior to the trip to confirm what we’d need to confirm my daughters birthday. When we arrived, he not only remembered our conversation, but didn’t even ask for the ID and documents. He simply took it off the bill without another word. Thank you very much Oscar!

Eating here now! Friendly service! Clean restaurant! And you make your own meals for them to cook, so the taste is all on you. $ 13.99 for unlimited dinner. Also has hot food on the side (orange chicken, kung pao chicken, teriyaki chicken and egg rolls) but since it’s a slow Monday night (630pm) the hot food has been sitting out for awhile so it’s not fresh (fried rice was hard and orange chicken and egg rolls were soft). I would recommend coming right at 4 when, hopefully, the hot food is at its freshest, or just be lucky that a fresh batch comes out when your there. Finish your meal with the peppermint ice cream and your meal is complete!

They have a «people love us on Unilocal» sticker on the door, but we weren’t really satisfied upon leaving this restaurant.
Their egg flower soup wasn’t very good. I definitely prefer the egg flower at Yummy Mongolian just down the road.
Their selection of meats and veggies was good. Their veggies were fresh. I always pick shrimp, my husband goes with either chicken or beef. He said the chicken had a weird taste/​smell which he guesses came from it being frozen too long.
They also have a few additional ready-​made options available for dinner. I picked a few orange chicken pieces which I thought tasted okay but were not warm and the chicken was tough. I also got a spring roll which was cold. My husband picked a couple of their other ready-​made items (Kung Pao Chicken and another chicken item) and he said those also had the funky chicken taste.
Our waitress was nice. We told her it was our first time coming to their restaurant and she said she could bring rice and some sort of crêpe-​ish thing which comes with the meal – I think the crepes are an alternative to noodles – but by the time we were back at the table we had already picked noodles so the crepes were mostly useless to us.
One thing I liked about this place vs Yummy’s was the décor and layout. They had a lot of booths which made the experience a little more private than at Yummy’s which is more open and family-​style. However, they have several fake plants to decorate and they were all overdue for a dusting (or replacing) which made me wonder what else in the restaurant was overdue for cleaning.
The waitress offered us some peppermint ice cream at the end of our meal. I wish they had another plain flavor such as vanilla because neither of us like peppermint so we had to pass on that.
Oh, and they don’t accept American Express to boot.
We are happy to have tried this restaurant, but we liked Yummy’s more: the food tastes better and the buffet is a dollar or two cheaper per person.

Haven’t been to a lot of these «make it your self» places. And I am pleased to say that I enjoyed it!
The piece is reasonable for lunch and there were plenty of seating.
Not much for service, which I understand. You literally do Everything yourself. They juts cook it up for you and take your plate away when you are done.
I like and appreciate the fact that you can go healthy by cooking up meat and veggies, or you can add noodles to the mix if you want carbs.
All and all the experience has been great, and we will be returning.

I tried this restaurant on two separate occasions while in Vancouver on business.
The concept is nice, but I found the assorted meats in the buffet trays to be almost frozen solid.
The noise from the radio. yes, they play a radio… complete with commercials and hysterical disc jockeys… is almost intolerable… so much so that on my second trip I brought along and wore a pair of ear plugs.
You would think that the manager would have taken the hint… actually, he did not even react when I complained to his face about it. Considering that he had a huge grin on his face when I mentioned this to him, I wonder whether he had just come in from a «smoke break»
(marijuana is of course legal in the state of Washington).
As a side note, I ate there twice and got the runs twice.
Other than that, all is ok.

We went here as family of 5, and we really enjoyed this better than some of the other Mongolian grills around. Very clean, veggies were so fresh and the chef grilling that night really made sure the meat was cook thoroughly but didn’t over cook the veggies!

This place is decent. Good variety of meats and veggies. Some of the already cooked foods looked like it had been sitting for awhile though.
Nice service. People were polite and helpful with drinks and talking used plates.
The place was nice and clean, lots of room and a full bar. Got some Blue Moon!

Decent mongolian bbq. They just need a few more veggies, like mushrooms. Full bar is nice, service can be kinda slow.

I love this place I have gone here more then a handful of times and never disappointed, always clean and nicer then any other Mongolian grill Ive ever been to go crazy and put sauces it comes out amazing.

We went here last night and the food and service was amazing!!! We followed other user reviews and added more sauce as others said it cooks out slightly and to add more. It made our meals perfect! Loved the lamb!!! So tender! I agree with other reviewers that the seafood section looked s bit iffy, but there was enough of the lamb, beef and chicken to please us. We will most definitely be going back here again!!! We did enjoy the peppermint ice cream as well. We wish we would have known you can take your leftovers to go as we would have done that. Did not realize until we saw other guests getting their food boxed up. We don’t like to waste, so this would have been good to know. Overall, great meal, great service and great environment! Very happy with our meal! As for others who say it’s too expensive… you definitely get what you pay for… Quality food at a great price!

I’m not sure why people are complaining about price. This average price for any Mongolian grill, unless you have a coupon to make it cheaper.
This place is for sure one of the nicest Mongolian grills in Vancouver. Staff was extremely friendly. The cook when I went was awesome! Besides he cooked the meat a little bit too long (it was really, really dry) Besides that food was amazing! Lots of great choices of stuff to choose from.

I do agree with most fellow Unilocaler’s comments on this place having a great selection of meats, veggies and sauces. What really made this a bad experience was a variety of things.
First, the place inside is sweltering hot! It was like 80 degrees inside! Can somebody please crank up the AC! Second, the stations that have all the meats and veggies are absolutely filthy! Some stations are missing the glass on top that protects the food, which is one thing, but the lights and signs above are covered in dust! My imagination thought of a breeze of wind launching dust and debris all over the food… but I was already in too late, and my food was cooking.
Lastly, the «rice» station was a joke. The white rice was in a shallow pan with a plastic top that looks like its had been around block and you could tell the rice had been there a while. The rice was yellow on the bottom and was crunchy… Yikes! I almost broke a tooth!
I did like the food, but that was probably due to the salty skin bits that fell from the ceiling!!!

I have a blast at this place.
I feel like the winner of top chef every time I walk away from that hot wok and chow down on my creation.
I have NO idea what I’m doing when I begin to put things in my bowl, but somehow it always turns out delicious, and somehow I always end up back in line. Again, and again, and again.
I feel like someone who REALLY knows what they’re doing with all these meat, veggie, sauce, and spice options could make something so extremely delicious.
Being on a diet restriction (low sodium and gluten free) makes this place a great option to go when my boyfriend just wants to take me on a date, because I usually have to turn everything else down because it can be hard to know exactly what is in the things on the menu, or how much salt they decided to throw in that dish.
But at mongolian grills, I am able to decide what I want in my meal to the last drop.
I do wish that they had more noodle options, rice noodles preferably. I feel like a vermicelli noodle would go so well here, and they would be gluten free and they would hold any sauce so well.
I also wish that they gave some recommendations of combos to throw in the bowl, for all of us non-​chefs.
But call me picky.