Genghis Khan Mongolian Grill

My third home in Toronto was the Del Rosario’s abode.  Tere and I have been friends since my arrival in Canada that I almost feel she’s my long-lost sibling.  We have discovered and learned Toronto together and over a decade after, that friendship goes on strong.  Tere has solidified it making me the godmother of all her three children.  Her third bundle of joy was baptized last Saturday and just like any important event in a Catholic family, we celebrated Andi’s baptism having family and friends together for a lunch at Genghis Khan Mongolian Grill at North York.

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This place was not your conventional buffet.  On top of having the regular hot buffet table, it had an extra attraction of freshly cooked customized meals.  It worked perfectly for big events like this as there was something for everyone. When dining here, I always almost skip the hot buffet table and go sauntering towards the direction of the Mongolian grill.  The main idea was to pile up on the thinly-sliced meats and a variety of herbs and vegetables and concoct your own sauce from a host of sauces and flavors that generously lined up at the end of the Mongolian buffet.  After your choice was done, patrons were directed towards the Mongolian chefs who stand before a gigantic hot, sizzling grill.  Throwing what you have piled on your bowl from the buffet to the hot grill, they quickly tossed it with the addition of water which quickly steamed and evaporated.  In less than 5 minutes, the chef expertly slides the grilled food onto a new bowl,  the seafood still pliant and expertly cooked.

My own design would be a pile of beef and pork, with calamari, shrimp and squid balls, a generous heap of spinach, mushrooms, thin egg noodles, onions, cilantro, carrots, sesame seeds and garlic.  The sauces, I always had soy sauce, hoisin, sugar water, seafood water, sesame oil and chili oil.  Whew!  Now that I see that I had way too much ingredients, I recommend that you start it easy with ready-made sauces which were available too.  I must tell you that when I cook, I normally play with my ingredients.  To me my design made sense and have been with the same recipe for years now.  Never fails.  We finished off the meal making an almost-Filipino like Halo-halo.  Almost I say as I was missing some of the key ingredients that a true-blue Halo-Halo should have.  It was good enough to pacify my need for something sweet.

I find it amusing that I managed to take all the images of the food despite being the party’s photographer.  One of the chefs I caught watching me.  He must have wondered what I was doing taking pictures with an iPhone when I have a big camera draped on my neck.  Ah well, both mediums work for me and for all the practice that I have done juggling multiple cameras, I forget that I make a spectacle for others to watch.  LOL.

Welcome to the Catholic world my dear Andi.  You now join your two sisters on my list of children to spoil like crazy.  :)