Mongolian BBQ @ Cafe Azul

I love having the Mongolian BBQ bowl at Cafe Azul, a fine-dining restaurant in our university sports center. It has the traditional style of combining your ingredients of choice from rice and noodles to vegetables and condiments. What keeps me coming back for more is the variety of sauces. A customer can choose savory Mongolian sauce, sweet teriyaki sauce, spicy chili paste or a combination of them all. The best part is that you can get as much vegetables and spices as you like. That is, of course, as long as it fits in your bowl. The amount of squid and meat is rather controlled. 60 grams is the fixed weight for the mini bowl (see above photo) while the regular bowl has 100-grams. The choices are either beef, squid, chicken, pork or a mix.

For Php 100 per mini bowl that comes with a glass of iced tea, the price is reasonable but there are some things to remember:

1. Learn the art of compacting the ingredients into the tiny bowl. The value of your money depends on how much rich and vegetables you put in.

2. Choose more oranges than greens. For some reason the food always seems less after it has been cooked. The cabbages and onion springs tend to shrink and disintegrate when heated while the other s don't. So instead of getting a mountain of cabbage shreds, it is better go choose more tomatoes and carrots to minimize food loss.

3. A scoop of teriyaki sauce goes a long way. Unless you want a real sweet taste, go easy on this sauce. It easily overpowers the other flavors.

There you have it. I highly recommend trying the Mongolian BBQ bowl at Cafe Azul. Although it may be tricky in getting the perfect mix of ingredients right the first time, this dining experience is worth your time and money.