HuHot Mongolian Grill in Layton: Checking it Out
The HuHot Mongolian Grill is fairly new to northern Utah, but the Mongolian grill concept has been around here for a long time. Lee’s Mongolian BBQ has been an Ogden institution for at least 40 years, and Layton already has the Mongolian Grill on Antelope Drive (near Target/Lowe’s area). For those unfamiliar with the concept, diners choose their own meats, veggies, noodles, and sauces from a buffet of ingredients; then it’s stir-fried to sizzling perfection on a giant round, flat-top grill.
Some big advantages are that you can customize your meal to your liking, whether it’s low-carb, gluten-free, vegetarian, high-protein, etc. If you prefer bamboo shoots instead of bell peppers, have it your way. Also, you can get a variety of healthy veggies without having to do all the peeling and chopping that you would at home.
HuHot, founded in Missoula, Montana, now has well over 70 locations around the country, including Logan, Sandy and Spanish Fork in Utah. According to information I found online, founding Vap family originally called it Mongo’s, but found that name was already trademarked. So they changed the name to HuHot, for Mongolia’s capital city of HohHot.
A friend and I lunched at the Layton location (842 North Main Street) on a quiet Monday afternoon, and I think HuHot is doing a lot of things right. If you check online food reviews such as Yelp! for Mongolian BBQs in general, you’ll find common complaints are lack of cleanliness, not enough ingredients to choose from, and expensive for what you get. But HuHot seems to avoid those problems — the dining, buffet and cooking areas looked clean and inviting. The buffet was well-stocked with a wide variety of fresh and frozen ingredients. Price-wise, an all-you-can-eat lunch is $10.95 and dinner is $14.95. Considering that you aren’t limited on the amount or type of ingredients you choose, that seems like a pretty fair price. According to HuHot’s corporate website, dinner hours feature even more buffet ingredients. Also, the wait staff was attentive and helpful.
For our lunch, protein choices included frozen, thinly sliced chicken, beef and pork, as well sausage, meatballs, mussels, pollock and krab (seafood that’s been formed and flavored to mimic crab; a staple of many deli seafood salads.)
The fresh veggies were what you’d find of a well-stocked a salad bar, such as broccoli, spinach, mushrooms, carrots, celery, bok choy, cabbage, water chestnuts, bell peppers, bamboo shoots, black beans, onion, red-skinned potatoes, and probably more that I can’t remember. I skipped over the noodles for my own meal, but some choices included Chinese, yakisoba and Pad Thai.
My cousin Jerry (a veteran Mongolian BBQ-goer) advised filling up up two bowls with ingredients instead of one, as the veggies shrink as they cook. A bowl that seems heaped high with ingredients will cook down to a small amount on your dinner plate. Our waiter gave us the same advice, and he also advised adding at least five scoops of sauce so that your meal is well-flavored.
There were over 20 sauces to choose from. The labels give some clues on the flavor and heat level. I chose 4 ladles of samurai teriyaki sauce, and a ladle of peanut sauce. It was a safe, but flavorful, choice. Next time I’ll probably branch out into something more spicy.
Then you hand the bowls of food to a cook, and watch as it’s dumped onto the hot grill, stirred and sizzled a bit, then scraped off onto a plate and handed back to you. It only took a few minutes to cook, but this was a quiet Monday afternoon. I imagine during a busy evening, the grill might get backed up and you’d need to wait a little longer.
Our waiter brought out a bowl with steamed white rice to go with our meal. You can also order appetizers — egg rolls, pot stickers, etc., but it seemed the stir-fry offered plenty of food. Kids can get their own stir-fry for $5.49 (under age 4 are free) or get chicken strips ($6.29) or mac ‘n’ cheese ($5.99).
For me, it was no problem just throwing a lot of ingredients together. But if you’re wondering how certain combinations might work out, the Huhot website has posted suggested “recipes.” For instance, for Beef Szechuan, fill your bowl(s) with beef, bamboo shoots, celery, onion, and yakisoba noodles. Pour on 1 ladle Samurai Teriyaki, 3 ladles Five Village Fire Szechuan sauce, l ladle garlic broth and 1 ladle garlic chili sauce. For Beanie Baby, combine beef, broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts, black beans, water chestnuts, and pad Thai noodles. Add with 2 ladles of Kung Pao Yow sauce, and 4 ladles of Not-So-Sweet and Sour sauce. Top with chopped peanuts. These “recipes” may be posted somewhere in the restaurant as well, but I was probably too intent on filling my bowl to notice them.
The most difficult thing about HuHot is finding it and getting there, as the green building is tucked away in the north corner of the Staples/Deseret Book parking lot on Main Street, near the Hill Field Road I-15 entrance. (Some may remember when this building was a Fuddruckers, then a Mexican restaurant.) Coming off of I-15 from the north, it took two U-turns and more than 10 minutes sitting in traffic lights to get into the parking lot. It seems the UDOT road designers’ traffic solution is to confuse drivers into avoiding that area at all cost. That would be a shame in the case of HuHot. If you are coming from the southern end of Davis County, I’d recommend getting off on the Layton Parkway and head north on Main Street, where you can make a simple right-hand turn into the parking lot.