Showmanship, good taste and individual creativity, thanks to a buffet of ingredients that allow you to mix and match your entree, have helped make the Genghis Khan Mongolian Bar-B-Q Restaurant in Schaumburg a success.
Owner Tom Yu opened the restaurant four and a half years ago, basing it on a style of restaurant he developed in Taiwan 20 years before, when he saw a need for a quick lunch for workers. The buffet-barbecue idea met that need. When Yu arrived in Chicago from Taiwan, he felt this concept had a chance to succeed because it was different.
Anyone who walks away hungry has not taken advantage of the bill-of-fare. For openers, diners are served a pot of tea and a choice of hot-and-sour soup or egg-drop soup. This is followed at dinner by a tray of appetizers including a pastry with a melt-in-the-mouth crabmeat and cream cheese filling, egg rolls, a shrimp paste in a sesame seed pastry, along with skewered teriyaki chicken slices.
Those new to the restaurant are ”walked through” the dining procedure. Head to the food bar with a tureen-size bowl and choose from a variety of ingredients, including thin-sliced beef, pork, veal and chicken, plus an array of 10 different sliced vegetables, leaf spinach, tomato slices and pineapple chunks. Make a choice from the selection of sauces and flavor enhancers, then walk over to where the cooks await a chance to show their flair. The contents of your bowl, and a little water, are emptied onto a large, flat hot griddle, stirred and mixed with two bamboo utensils, and gracefully but precisely returned to your bowl.
If, after devouring all you`ve selected, you`re still hungry, there is a steam table filled with a variety of additional courses.
Dessert is simple and light; a large slice of an orange or similar fruit and a fortune cookie marks the end of the meal.
Lunch at Genghis Khan includes soup, egg roll, bread and one trip through the food buffet at $5.95 per person. The all-you-can-eat dinners cost $10.95; or for children, $4.25.
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Genghis Khan Mongolian Barb-B-Q, 27 E. Golf Road, Schaumburg, is open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; dinner is served from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 5 to 10 p.m. Friday; noon to 10:30 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. 708-882-8920.
