Kublai's

Kublai's was one of the restos Ruy and I frequented when we were just students. The experience of going back there, this time with Andrea, was definitely nostalgic.

Kublai's, when we were in college, offered the most affordable Mongolian Buffet out there. It's true that you could find a lot of restaurants offering their Mongolian Buffets for so much cheaper, but you'd be hard pressed in finding one with as much variety in terms of ingredients.

Mongolian Buffet virgins need not fear as Kublai's offers instructions for those who need them.

Ruy and I get quite competitive when it comes to our Mongolian bowls. We have our mini competitions to see whose bowl would be better. With victory as our goal, we went through the different ingredients Kublai's offers.




This is their carbs and egg section. You can choose from rice or the two variety of noodles.




The carb station is closely followed by the veggie station. I wasn't able to take a picture of all the vegetables but there sure were a lot! Squash, eggplant, corn, cabbage, bean sprouts, young corn, carrots....this guarantees that even vegetarians would get to enjoy this place!




Carnivores like myself would also enjoy the buffet which offers a whole lot of animals (hehehe). You have fish fillet, beef, pork, shrimp, squid, pork and chicken liver, crispy fish, etc. They even have pork tocino! My only complaint is that the ingredients don't seem to be at their freshest. The shrimp and tocino I tried were frozen, as if they were left overs from the day before. I hope I'm wrong in this assumption




I particularly love creating sauces for my mongolian bowls. Kublai's offers a LOT of sauces. They have the basic ingredients like ginger, garlic, onion, chili, lemon water, soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar etc. They also have ready made sauces like teriyaki, oyster, bulgogi, etc. This leads to a myriad of possible permutations in terms of the combination of ingredients. For those who might want to take a safer route, there are recipe guides to help you create your own sauce.




The bowls will then be sent to the kitchen which is clearly visible to everyone. The chef skillfully mixes our creations.



While Andrea watches in awe.

The result of this process?



This is Ruy's creation.



And this is mine.

Ruy kept on eating off my bowl and it was understood that I win this round...like always! Tsk tsk tsk...and people thought that Ruy was the cook in this household. =)



Ruy was not ready to admit defeat so he set off to create another bowl (which I seriously think was inspired by my winning bowl)



Ruy's second bowl -- I would admit that this was indeed better than his first. I could not eat another bowl though so we weren't able to have a round two of our competition...