Mongolian Grill Woodinville — Restaurant in Woodinville

The heaping bowl rule is just dumb and the ownership should just do away with it. I eat here often, and most of the time they don't charge anything extra. I get the same food every time, with double meat. This last time though, for no apparent reason my bowl was considered "heaping" and they tried to sneak (yes I said sneak) and extra charge for it. How do I know the tried to sneak it? The front desk person was very quick and coy when punching it into her system, but the price flashed for a split second before switching to only showing the total cost. I requested an itemized cost, and sure enough a fee fir heaping bowl. I said that I got the same size bowl I always do but didn't matter to her. I still had to pay the fee this time. This kinda frustrates me because what is constituted as a "heaping" bowl? It's left up to the judgment of the employee, there's no true system in place to determine "heaping". I felt I had no choice but to pay but I still felt this was unnecessary. I just wish it wasn't so sneaky. Will I pay a heaping bowl price next time? Don't know... theres no system to determine that.

To the ownership or management, I'd suggest getting 2 different sized bowls, large and small, and have them be different colors, and whatever you can fit on 1 bowl you pay that price. Then you'll never have upset customers like myself with surprise charges. It leaves a very poor taste when the employees are forced to sneak in charges because once I noticed and questioned her on the price, she clearly felt very uncomfortable to have to charge me for it and was hoping I wouldn't have noticed.

This also makes me think, how many customers have unknowingly paid this fee? This type of thing sows major distrust in an establishment. Heaping bowl charge is...

Not your regular Mongolian grill restaurant. I met up with a friend who told me that she got there a few minutes before I did. We looked around and realized this wasn't what we expected. Standing there looking and trying to figure out how to navigate their process someone finally asked if we were new to the restaurant. She was very happy to share with us where the bowls were, that we'd order our protein when we gave them our bowls and could pick what sauce at the end. There is a small sign above the bowls that tells you what you do. I've included a pic of the sign. Be careful how full you fill your bowl, the sign says you'll be charged more if the bowl is too full but no where does it say how much you'll be charged. They have an example bowl of an appropriate serving. You get to choose one protein and can add more for a charge. You select a sauce after you dish is plated. They have premade sauces and some of them are unexpected. I got a couple of the sauces on the side so I could mix them together. I liked that you can get brown or white rice.

Overall not a bad place, just not my preferred style of Mongolian grill. It was fairly busy while we were there, Saturday ~7:00pm.

The also do take out which might be why they are set up the way they are.

If I go back I'll try to find / get someone to explain when is a bowl is considered too full and how much the...

I do not understand how this place is still in business. I went in and was completely ignored by staff for well over 10 minutes, until a friend joined me and we both stood there trying to get someone’s attention.

I understand how Mongolian Grill restaurants work, but you are usually still greeted, seated, and told how it works. Except here, where you are apparently considered an irritating bother.

While there is a small poster of instructions for the filling of bowls, there are things purposefully left vague. For example, the sign says “overfilled bowls will incur an extra charge”. However, there is no information on what constitutes an overfilled bowl. So they can just charge extra whenever they choose, apparently.

The selection of ingredients is smaller than usual, but typical enough. You do not get to add your own protein, however. They do that and I would not count it as particularly high quality. The beef is likely chuck steak or something similarly cheap. It is tough to chew and completely flavorless. The chicken, while breast meat, is odd sized, and seemed more like trimmed bits rather than prime. It was similarly tasteless.

The sauces offered are bland, even the ones with a spicy kick only have that going for them.

I can not recommend this place at all. I would suggest eating almost...