HuHot Mongolian Grill

They were Very good
good food good help very nice I would go back for sure
Zach was very nice help full thank u

A tad surprised this chain came to Ames, but I’m happy it’s here. I hope they don’t stomp out local business Mongolian Buffet. They serve a few items, but the main «thing» is the buffet. Choose your noodles, vegetables, meat, sauces, and there’s a large grill where staff grills it up for you. If you’re gluten intolerant or have major allergies — no problem! Great for picky eaters and those with allergies. They’ll clean the grill and keep your food separate from others while they cook it.
My biggest reason for digging this place is the general manager — this man works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen and is super supportive of the cooks and waiters. Great experience my first time ever at a HuHot, and I’ll definitely return. Heard of the chain, glad it lived up to the hype.

Friendly service. Excellent food and sauces for any pallet. Must try this place if you haven’t already done so.

A very popular place in a college town for a reason! The place is casual dress but nice and quite busy. The food is good and unlimited. That being said, understand that it you have to wait in line while your food is being made, and that can take awhile, so the older generations might not like it. Also, do NOT go if you have a severe allergy to something like shrimp because the grill that they cook it on is not sectioned off so sometimes your food will touch others being cooked next to you.

This is a few weeks in now from when it opened, and the learning curve for employees seems to have been taken care of.
This Hu Hot is like all others I’ve been to, with service on par with what I have come to expect.
The food is better here than the other Mongolian bar style buffet in Ames, and I am glad it is here. Just Park in the back, else you play parking spot roulette.

For those who aren’t aware, HuHot Monogolian Grill is an «all-​you-​can-​eat» establishment with a build-​your-​own-​bowl-​of-​noodles/​stir fry type of set-​up. When you get there, you’ll be seated. You’ll order any appetizers and tell the server what drink you’d like (They have Coke Freestyle machines here with hundreds of choices). You’ll get get up and pick up an empty bowl. You’ll first fill that bowl with any meats you’d like. Then choose what noodles you’d like. Then put on the veggies on top. Finally, you put 5 – 6 scoops (I usually do 2 to cut down on sodium) of your choice of sauces on top. You then bring your bowl to a large, circle-​grill. They’ll take your food and put it on the grill. You then stand and wait until your food is cooked and they hand it back to you on a plate. You then sit and eat. And repeat this process as many times as you want.
HuHot just opened about a week ago, so this review is written with the general idea that they’re still having growing pains. Staff are new, they’re probably overloaded with new people who want to eat at the «shiny new place», and everybody is still learning to function together as a team.
Short Version:
You can get the food you enjoy at this HuHot location, but it wasn’t anything spectacular this time around. My visit this time was «meh», but with time, I think the customer service could really push this place into an awesome place to eat. Good, healthy food, and you get to choose exactly what you want and how much of it you want.
Long Version:
I regularly dine at the HuHot in Cedar Falls (and other HuHots in the area such as Ankeny), so I was happy to see that Ames was getting a HuHot establishment of their own.
The interior here is pretty nice. As it was just built, everything is still very shiny and new. There are lots of two and four person tables as well as four person booths. There are also tables that can be pushed together for larger parties. I instantly received a seat during a lunch hour on a weekday, but larger parties were waiting for seating. Everything is new, so comfortable seating and sparkling clean.
Unlike other HuHots, this one only has two types of noodle choices. I like that they provide calorie information right on the placards for all of the meats. All of the food choices were relatively well-​stocked when I got there — and if they weren’t, they were restocked by the time it had taken me to get another plate. The «Grill Warriors» at the grill didn’t seem particularly experienced yet. Very little «noise» from the spatulas (like they’re trained to do), and most were moving slowly and with care to what they were doing. It looks like they’re still new to it. Because of that, they really didn’t seem to be chopping up the stir fry or moving it around enough, and I did get burned noodles on both of my plates.
Service wasn’t so great. I’m going to guess that a lot of the wait staff haven’t actually been wait staff before. It’s standard practice to have drinks set on the table before the guests come back with their first plate. I didn’t receive my drink until half-​way through my first plate when the manager noticed the lack of a drink. After that, the waitress did a pretty good job of keeping me refilled on drinks. I didn’t receive my check, after waiting for 10 minutes, until I specifically asked another waitress for my check. There were a lot of wait staff, so I don’t think they were particularly backlogged, but I’m not sure if the wait staff is still 100% sure on what they’re doing.
This isn’t specific to this particular HuHot, but I wish the prices were less. During lunch, it’s $ 10 for a lunch admission. Evenings go up to $ 14 per person — and all of that’s without drinks. If you can actually take advantage of the «all you can eat», that’s awesome for that price. But I prefer to eat moderately — so I normally only get two plates. So that’s super expensive for what amounts to be about 400 calories. I’d love to see them offer a «pay per plate» option.
I have a feeling a lot of their current issues are because they still have an employee base that isn’t entirely sure what’s going on. That’s what happens when you go to a restaurant that’s been open for a week. With time, though, and a good management team, this modern establishment could be a really fantastic place to get lunch or dinner. I’m looking forward to seeing how this place develops. If it gets great customer service, this could easily turn into a 5-​star type of place.