Chang's Mongolian Grill — Restaurant in Salem

We went to Chang's for the first time on 12/16/2023 with our friends who had also never been there nor have ever been to any Mongolian restaurant.

My husband and I have been to a few different Mongolian restaurants, but this one by far was the most unorganized, chaotic and disappointing experience we have ever had.

First the restaurant is only open for specific lunch and dinner hours. We decided to go to dinner and I had a feeling it would be busy, so we got to the restaurant at 4:45 when they re-open at 5pm. When we got to the door, they had already opened and started to let people in.

The employees were lost and confused. We assumed we knew how the process works, you get seated, drink orders are taken and then we are told that we can go get our food. But the server didn’t feel like explaining that to us, what if we had never had Mongolian before? I swear there wasn’t a manager to be seen, the staff was all teenagers thinking that because it’s a buffet style, that people don’t need to be attended to.

By the time the server came to our table to take our drink orders, and we could go up to the fresh food buffet, the line was already so long, and the buffet was a mess. This was within 10 minutes. Unlike other Mongolian grill restaurants that have a 1 bowl limit, this was not the case. Some people had 3-4 bowls overflowing!!! These people acted like they have never had a meal in their life! You pay to be able to keep going back for more, I don’t think people understood that or were too lazy.

Because people were filling a trough full of food, the line moved so slow because so much food had to be cooked, it was ridiculous. It took at least 20 minutes of standing there watching people slide four bowls together down the counter, I couldn’t believe it.

Because this is common practice at this restaurant, the cooks are used to combining all of these people’s bowls, and as a result they combined both my husband and my bowls which had vastly different ingredients. So, I had to be the a*hle who had to go back and make a second bowl. I am sure everyone in line thought I was cutting the line.

Because I don’t eat like a cow, I only brought up one bowl, so I went back for a second bowl which was no faster than the first trip. It took forever.

The restaurant really needs some improvements. Why not limit the number of bowls allowed per trip? Slightly bigger bowls? Why not stay open from opening at lunch until closing after dinner? This would take away from the chaotic cattle call. I would imagine lunch is just as busy. And better training for the staff. For $20.95 per person, you’d think that they would be making a killing, but I would imagine that the reason other restaurants have a one bowl limit is so people don’t waste food and to cut back on the cooking times.

The only plus was that the food that I ate was good, my friends didn’t like it and because my husband’s plate had two different plates combined, that had to be a hot mess.

I am not sure that we will return which is really disappointing since there is only one Mongolian...

Undeniably Awesome ! ! ! It's hard to expect much with take out food during a pandemic. Especially from an “all you can eat mongolian grill”? I couldn't imagine how it could work - but Chang's Mongolian Grill has nailed it!!! Every aspect of my visit was beyond five star service. • Their preparations, and their modified enclosed buffet line that permits them to remain open even in a “take out only” world. And they were even doing MORE preparations for when they'll be allowed to have “dine in” customers. They definitely showed great foresight and great ingenuity on their part - and this made the whole experience spectacular. • Their patience with each customer as they explained how to do “take out” from this type of buffet line and answered each question as if we were the only ones to have ever asked them. • Their portions are generous and have only the freshest ingredients. I chose to go at dinner ($4.00 extra), so I could get fancy with calamari, shrimp, crab and many other things not available at lunch. Oh so definitely worth it! • Their prowess in bringing it all together, kindness in helping me with decisions, the extra care that the Cook provided by checking with me on extra seasonings and how long I preferred my meal to cook. • The particulars: they took the time to make sure I ordered drinks made to perfection (strawberry-lemonade & mango lemonade from fresh fruit), that I had the correct soup, sides (rice, etc.) and a comfortable socially distant vantage point to observe everything being cooked and packaged. It's been fifteen years since I've eaten here, and everything seemed better than before. Yes, I had to take my food home to eat it (see photos), yet all their preparations, patience, prowess (and generous portions) prevented this from diminishing my experience. Somehow they made it feel NATURAL to do so. I had been concerned about not getting my money's worth or being disconnected from this type experience where you choose the ingredients and have it cooked the way you like. But I discovered that there was nothing to fear. If you're looking for something fresh, fancy and filling you've got to try Chang's Mongolian Grill. I'd like to think it was simply the portion size or the quality of the food. But each employee I came into contact with truly enhanced my experience. I ate calamari stir fry four days in a row! And I like large portions when I eat 😋. I ended up with close to eight cups of food (not counting the two cups of rice and two cups of soup). I can only summarize my experience with Chang's Mongolian Grill one way: Prodigiously awesome! I'll definitely be...

First of all, the food itself I would give a 5/5, it is the quality of service that really brought this place down.

Went here with some friends for lunch and the place was slammed, which is understandable. We are greeted by a young man, not with a hello or welcome, but with a "there's a fifteen-minute wait, is that ok?" and I say ok and my party and I wait for an open table. After a short while, a woman takes us to our table and we head to the food line to pick our bowls. While in the line we notice that the buffet has gotten quite messy and so my friend points this out to one of the wait staff that is walking by and the staff member says "that's not my job," and then tells (not asks) my friend to move as the staff member sweeps at my friend's shoes with a broom. After moving down the line some more we got to the oils at the end of the buffet and some weren't labeled, my friends and I tried asking several of the wait staff that were passing by what the unlabeled oils were and got no responses other than annoyed looks. After playing the guessing game with our oils we got in line for the grill. The place was so busy that the grill line had started to wrap around the restaurant so we had to stand by some tables and were told (not asked) by wait staff to move out of their way. We finally get to the grill (which I was happy to wait for until I was being treated like a nuisance by the staff) and I was actually quite impressed by the synergy that the cooks had, the guys on the grill were absolutely killing it, they kept the line moving, POLITELY directed people around to avoid crowding, and kept grilling at the same time. We got our food and returned to the table and had an almost completely uninterrupted meal, we had to call out to passing wait staff (who were visibly annoyed by this) to get more water. Finally, when we finished our meal (food was excellent btw, 5/5) we had to dispute a charge for an extra plate that we didn't order.

TLDR: This food was excellent, but you can get excellent Mongolian food at a lot of places. The wait staff was visibly annoyed at us the whole time and we did not feel welcome so we will not...