BD’s Mongolian Grill

Found this place after a run on a cold December night. I was after something quick with veggies, meat, and some flavor, and this place suited perfectly. While it wasn’t anything amazing or surprising (I’ve had Mongolian BBQ before) it was good. How can you go wrong with fresh veggies, meat, and flavorful sauce cooked quickly right in front of you? I had the sriracha marinated chicken, threw in some shrimp, and a bunch of veggies which hold the flavors well from stir fry type dishes (water chestnuts, broccoli, green and red peppers, brussels sprouts) and picked some teriyaki and Mongolian garlic sauce, plus a bit of garlic powder. Came out great — a tiny bit of spice, plenty of flavor.
But, as I said, not really remarkable. I’d probably rate it 3.5 stars overall.
One «technical note» — some people complain about lack of flavor. I expect this is a result of picking foods which don’t hold flavor well. For example, a lot of the vegetables they have (beans and carrots, for example) can’t quickly pick up and hold flavor in a short amount of time in a stir fry setting. So if you go with those, you won’t get much flavor.

Everything tastes the same no matter what sauces & spices that you choose. It’s bland and standing up there while they prepare your food is annoying, they make you stand in a certain spot and then I’ve ended up with other ingredients in my food from others’ bowls, stuff that I don’t like!

RUN AWAY. RUN VERY. FAR. AWAY.
If I could give it 1 star I would.
My horrible experience with this place happened in November 2013. Just a few days before Thanksgiving. Lucky me.
My bf, sister and I went to this location. She is vegetarian and the only protein my bf ordered was beef. I chose to order shrimp and beef which was the worst choice I have probably made up until that point in my life.
Everything was fine, tasted good…
Until I woke up at 3 am that night projectile vomiting and other unmentionable things I won’t include in this review. This was the one and only time I have ever been food poisoned before. I have never been more sick in my life. Days later I could barely eat thanksgiving.
I have not and will not ever return to this restaurant or any hibachi restaurant.
If you think about how the food is all laid out it is very nasty and disgusting. Don’t eat here I am warning you!!!

Sea food is horrible made me sick as soon as i ate it. Customer service is great though. Manager addressed the problem instantly

Service was good. Not too pushy or anything. Not too crowded. Great atmosphere, lots to choose from. Reasonable price. Had Coke Zero, was not pushed to buy beer. Great time ! Will return!

Great concept for a restaurant, coming from the east coast I’d never heard of it and was happy I checked it out, select your own meat, spices, sauce and vegetables/​noodles and then have it cooked in front of you before taking meal to your table. Apps were very good and the meal was great just watch out for the Siracca Chicken it’s very very spicey (had me sweating) and make sure to have a plan of what you want and what works well together and don’t make the rookie mistake of adding things you like then realizing they don’t go well together

Love it. Met a cousin for a quick lunch before heading to work. I don’t understand how anyone cannot like BD’s. You get to pick the meat (s) and how much. You get to pick the veggies and how much. Then you get to make the sauce and again how much.
We love it and go as often as we can afford to. We even belong to the Mongo Club so we get free bowls on our birthdays. If you have not been, go you will have a great time.

the 3 stars is mostly due to my fiancé’s experience. the last time we went to bd was his first and he had a blast at the easton location. so i wanted to treat him and we went to the one in the arena district this time. we started out wanting to get the unlimted bowls, soup and salad. after my one bowl i had enough but i did eat a small bowl of soup. my fiancé got up for a second bowl and wanted to box what was left over (i know on the menu it states no doggie bags) so he asked for a box to go just to see what would happened. he was told after he paid the bill he could have gotten a box but they charge $ 2.95 for that! i use to go to this restaurant years ago and im shocked because we werent charged at the location at easton. my fiancé kinda fell out of love with bd after this experience. i still like it but i think next time ill be heading back over to easton’s location.

Food was good, but the service was atrocious. We arrived around 6:30 for dinner, and they told us it would be about 20 – 25 min wait. Despite this, they had empty tables that weren’t cleared off for 10 min. Once we were seated we went to the stir fry bar immediately but the wait to get to the grill was another 25 min, and the line was about 20 people long. Like I said, the food was fine but, the wait was just not worth it. By the time our food was cooked, my egg had practically hatched on its own

Came here pretty late, around 9pm. Still quite a few people eating dinner, staff was very nice.
Things I liked: food looked fresh and replenished. Many healthy options, including brown rice. Open cooking style is fun to watch. Very inexpensive meal for what you get (meat and veggies-​awesome).
Things I didn’t like: they cook the food plain with no real sauce, oil or any seasoning. At the end when your food is cooked thee then throw on the sauces you picked out and serve. My food was really bland, I think due to how it was cooked.
I’m visiting from out of town so I don’t think I would try this again if I were to visit again.

Great place to eat a really good and healthy meal! Excellent food with many choices — even for vegetarians! I’m not a veg head but if I were I could eat here safely no problem.
Initially when you come in, you will be seated. You can order from the menu or like most people you can select from the buffet and build your own Mongolian bowl.
There are already prepared recipe cards on the wall near the meat counter that you follow to the letter to build a popular BD bowl or you can build your own.
There are several choices of meats, vegetables, sauces, and spices that you can use to build your BD bowl according to your individual tastes. Never been to a place like this before coming here but it is always one of the first places I visit while in Columbus on travel!!!
The staff are nice, always fun to watch, and the atmosphere is lively and fun.
Sometimes the staff is busy so you may wait for a few short minutes at the front door for seating but it should be expected as this place is always hopping!
Strongly recommend!

Name speaks for itself. I love the new tangy sauce chicken! And they also have the new coke dispenser so over 100+ combinations.

Always like their bowls! But quality of service they have at different locations varies, too. I feel that BD likes to hire younger staff to keep up the atmosphere and the grill, but it’s also noticeable that young staff have more up and downs in mood than more experienced staff. This Nationwide Arena store is an example of it. We would love to see their energy and enthusiasm more consistently (which they do for the most of the time). But the moment when we walked into a BD and saw just tired faces and careless servers, we knew that was not the real BD we have in mind!

If you sign up for their mailing list, you get a $ 5 off coupon… so I came here for lunch today as it’s near my office. There was a funny/​unpleasant smell as I walked in, but it seemed to dissipate as I moved closer to the grill. Anyway, for lunch you can get a bowl for $ 9.49, which is much more reasonable than their dinner prices. I like the diversity of meats and seafood that they offer, and there are also lots of different veggies. The carrots looked kind of old, but most things appeared fresh. I built my bowl and began the agonizing process of picking a sauce — I want all the sauces all the time, so it’s hard for me to choose. I think the best course of action is to plan your bowl around what style of sauce you’ll pick so that the flavors compliment each other. Today I went for seafood with a mongolian ginger sauce, and it was really tasty. The previous times I’ve eaten here I’ve just kind of winged it (wung it?) and my bowl always ended up tasting the same… kind of a general teriyaki flavor.
The service here is pretty efficient, but the grill guys weren’t really paying attention to my food and they burned away the majority of my rice noodles. They were stuck to the grill, so sad times about that. Also, the other locations offer the option of the soup and salad bar with your bowl, but this one doesn’t seem to have that station set up.
I was pretty excited about my coupon and the great deal I got, but I don’t really see myself coming back for a full-​priced lunch.

A good place to try. Food tastes not bad. But the price is very good.

I dig the Mongolian grill concept in general, but BD’s was just sort of meh to me. The overall concept is fine, but something in their cooking process wasn’t quite up to snuff. I did appreciate that they cooked my husband’s food on a different grill because he has allergies. That was a nice touch. All of the employees were pretty nice, but I do have to say that they were a bit overzealous with banging on that gong. Like people are trying to eat and converse without being startled every few minutes, and I feel like some of them either weren’t aware of or didn’t care about that fact.

Really this saved the night. Was 9:16 PM when Rodizio next door, the carnivore delight was supposed to close at 10. Got there and they said sorry but grill turned off, there may be some things to eat… well no thank you, and especially driving super far for it on father’s day I was downright pissed. So we passed this place on the way back to the parking garage and what a lovely experience it was! The service was fantastic and the food was excellent though I do suggest getting the unlimited so if you make some iffy choices the first time around you can go back for more on the things you did like. There were two pages of drinks you could get for $ 4 people, and they were of the tall variety! On a bad night this is a savior establishment. Will be back for sure!

If you expect BD’s to be your typical Mongolian Barbecue, you’re in for a surprise — While all the food is cooked on a giant griddle, it’s not all Chinese /​Mongolian food. You can get a variety of meats (including carnitas and sausage) and a big variety of veggies, pastas, etc. and a lot of different types of sauces, and they’ll grill it up for you. And if you have a food allergy, like some of my friends, they will take special care to cook up your food separate from the normal grill to ensure no cross-​contamination of allergens.
Plus they have deep fried Oreos for dessert. Fried dough-​y goodness! Big soda selection as well.
So load up your bowl and go big with all your meats and veggies!

BD’s is always a good option for weekday lunch. Their prices, quality and quantity of food are just right. If you’re new to make-​your-​own stir fry places you might struggle. The best way to maximize the amount of food you get is to put your vegetables in the bowl FIRST, and then put the meat on top. This way the vegetables aren’t falling off when you go to take your bowl to be stir-​fried.
Usually the guys do a good job about paying attention to your stir-​fry. There’s been a few times where the food gets a little overdone because they’re cooking other people’s food while yours sits there unmoving, but it’s still always good.
Once your food is done, you take it back to the table where the waiter should have brought white and brown rice. You can also request tortillas or lettuce wraps at no charge.
Try the deep fried oreos! They were amazing. Hard to go wrong with those :)

I really enjoy Mongolian, just not in love with this location… I really enjoy partaking in the soup and salad bar, and this one doesn’t have one… you can get either from your server, but the salad is a basic side salad.
This past trip was a great experience tho… They have a new app which you can win things from… and the server was great… but the location and set up alone will keep me going to Easton.