Hot Iron Mongolian Grill

Food was good but the bathrooms were disgusting with months of build up from not being cleaned and the food prep area was gross. Mom and pop setup from the looks of it but the cleanliness makes me wonder if it’s safe to eat here. Not recommended unless your up on your shots.

First off, we haven’t eaten here in about a year or more. We decided to try it again and get our food to-​go. BIG MISTAKE!
When we were here last it was full of people, there were lines to dish up your bowl. As soon as I walked in I noticed how filthy and rundown it had become– down right nasty. We were greeted by an older Asian woman who simply said «4»? There was 1 other guy in there eating. We got our bowls dished up to be cooked on the grill. When it was all ready we went to pay-​again the rude woman. She lifted each one of our boxes and said «ohh heavy» when all I really got was a small bowl of veggies & noodles. I got a small bowl and my husband got a large bowl. She charged me $ 10.99 for both and when I questioned her about it she didn’t look up and ignored me. I paid feeling ripped off. The food isn’t bad-​but you are choosing what is on your plate.
I will not be returning just for the simple fact that it is filthy and the owners need to learn what it takes to run a successful business because their attitudes don’t help one bit.

Random stop on the way back from the Olympic penninsula. Pretty decent spot. Quick and easy — what you’d expect from a Mongolian BBQ. Ambiance leaves a bit to ask but the prices are reasonable

I must agree with the several others here, this place has seen better days. They used to have a wonderful hostess that loved people and her customers. She used to take pictures of her customers and put them on the wall of fame.
It really does seem like the lady who seats you does not like people in general. She does have a hissy if you want go-​box. I know it is a buffet and some people take advandage of this, but this is not an all you can eat buffet, it is an all you can fit in your bowl buffet. A go box should not be a problem.
The place is dirty. If you are trying to kick your addiction to sodas, just look at the soda machine and the exposed hoses… this should do the trick.
If they can’t scrub the windows, floors, or the soda machine once in awhile what does the back room look like where they store and prepare the food?
Advice to owners: Clean the place up, smile a little bit more, and be frickin’ nice. And for the prices you are charging at dinner, a go box should be OK. …and get your old hostess back!

4 stars for the food and cooking; 2 stars for the customer service.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing and she can’t help it. But it’s like being waited on by your monther-​in-​law who clearly didn’t want you to marry her daughter. She can be friendly and smile and thank you for coming… and she can also watch you like a hawk and complain about you in a language you don’t understand because there are entirely too many mushrooms in your bowl or your stacked your tofu too high for her likes.
The husband, I believe, is the chef. Very laid back, always mellow and nice, does a good job grilling.
The most important thing about this place is the sauces at the end of the food bar. If you don’t use enough or don’t get them right, you’ve ruined your meal. Try the recipes hanging over the sauces until you figure out what you like best. And know that you wlil almost always not put enough — we’ve never been able to put too much on ours, no matter whether we use 6 ladles or 10 of sauce/​oils/​flavorings.
Lunch ‘happy hour’ is your best bet; good portion for the best price.

The food is ok. The place is dirty. DON’T use the restroom, your feet will stick to the floor and they look like they have not been cleaned in a year.
They bitch you out if you ask for a go box. For the price, if I want a go box… shut your hole and give me a box. I will not go back because it is dirty, expensive and the owner sucks with a nasty attitude. It looks gross.

I have been eyeing this restaurant for sometime … havent had an opportunity to check them out … that is until today.
Saturday at 1:00pm and things are getting busy. This is a family business, mom helping you choose the right combination of foods ans sauces, and dad is doing the cooking on the grill… awesome!!!
I chose a little of this and a little of that… selecting items like sprouts, broccolli, onions, celery, tomatoes, watercrest, mushrooms, pork, chicken and some beef. I went without noodles and rice…
It was cooked perfect, and the sauces she put on mine… equally perfect. They have two bowl sizes, I went with the big $ 10.99 bowl… is that a lot of money? Perhaps if your experiences are at one of those «all you can eat» joints… but not here. Excellent vegetables… nice selection and fresh. Meats also good looking.
All said and done, this was quite satisfying. Listen, this is your friends and neighbors, show some support. I will be back, I hope to see you here.

It’s not clean, not cheap, sour service and bad food. Toilets were disgusting. Don’t go.

Would have given it one star if it weren’t for the fact that you can get a lot of food for the money. First off, these type of Buffett then cook places need to be really clean. This place is not really clean. The tables were sticky, the glasses… Sticky as well. The food in the Buffett section, some was mixed up with other items, the tongs were all over the place, and it looked as if some customers had touched the business end of the tongs with their hands because the tongs are clumsy and fall all about. Nasty. I have a tummy ache coming on now…
The service? Hardly anything to speak off. It was just mom and pop running the place. Took a really long time to get drinks… Pop seemed pissed to have to cook the food on the hot too.
Bottom line, avoid if you don’t want overpriced diarrhea. It’s a shame too because this type of place isn’t hard to make successful.
*******UPDATE********
Upset tummy after this, potential food poisoning, may call WADOH on this one. I had that feeling…

I have never been so uncomfortable eating somewhere like I was at this Mongolian grill. The hostess followed us around the entire time, checking every move we made and what we put in our bowls, how full our bowls were, constantly looking over our tab and our plates. She was so grumpy it was unbelievable. There were signs everywhere stating don’t take more than you can eat, no sharing, how to arrange your bowl, oversized bowls (at their discretion were $ 3 extra), etc. My kids ages 2 and 5 were trading veggies from their plates and she angrily hovered over us. And that brings us to the food. We love Mongolian grill and have been to many of them. I didn’t know you could go wrong with Mongolian grill, but apparently you can. The selection of veggies was good, but the meat bowls were about empty and the owner did not want to refill them. They threw the bowl of food on the grill, left it until it was burned to the grill (never adding any extra sauce or liquid, and forgetting to move it around. Then they scraped it off onto our plates. The veggies were raw, the noodles were burned or uncooked, depending on if it was a noodle from the top of the pile or the bottom. There were 6 in our party and none of us liked our food which is crazy because Mongolian Grill is one of our favorites. We weren’t even offered a refill on our waters, which was needed to help wash things down. We will never be going back. It was dirty, gross, and extremely uncomfortable.

The food is VERY good. Unfortunately, the owner/​hostess ranges from surly to sullen to suspicious to downright hostile and scolding. Back when they had hired hostesses, this was my favorite restaurant. Now I mostly avoid it. I can ignore her attitude easily enough, but there’s also sometimes a problem with her overcharging & arguing about it.

For putting together my own ingredients and seasoning it, it’d only be my fault if it didn’t taste good right? Needless to say, I made myself a very delicious meal. The price was ridiculously cheap! We both had a huge plate of food for a total of $ 11 during the regular hour, not happy hour. Nothing fancy, but this is a good lunch/​dinner place for wanting something quick, easy, and cheap. I will be returning.

We have been to this place a few times before and were always satisfied with the ingredient selection and price during happy hour. That is the reason we ate there more than once.
On the other hand, every time we have been, we haven’t liked the owner/​hostess. She follows you down the line as you get ingredients, glaring at you. She does this to every single person who comes in the place. She also glares and sighs if you ask for a box. We overlooked it before but after our experience tonight, we will never go back again.
We went through the line and got the usual glares and mutterings. We got the same amount of food that we always do and the same amount of food as people around us. At the end of the meal, she arbitrarily decided that ours were «oversized» and was going to charge us an extra $ 6. We calmly tried to talk to her about it and figure out why we were getting charged but other people weren’t. She wouldn’t let us speak and got more and more agitated to the point of yelling and told us to leave and not come back. One of the worst customer service experiences I’ve ever had!

Okay, so we’ll start with the atmosphere: well, there wasn’t one. It was pretty bare, with a lot of restaurant supplies stored in plain sight; like boxes of cups, napkins, and the boxes for the soda machine.
But who cares about the atmosphere? It doesn’t have to wow if the food is great!
The buffet was well-​stocked, with a wide range of veggies, meat, seafood, and sauces. My food was pretty good. But not amazing.
The major problem was the PRICE. It was $ 11/​bowl. $ 11 for some stir fry? They charge extra for any rice, too. Each of us got some tea, and our total was $ 28. For TWO PEOPLE! With tip, it was basically $ 30 for tea and stir fry!
But here is the MAJOR MAJOR PROBLEM: the hostess/​owner. There were angry signs hung EVERYWHERE that barked, «ONLY ONE BOWL PER PERSON,» and, «DON’T TOUCH FOOD,» and, «TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU CAN EAT,» and, «OVERSIZE $ 12.99 PLUS TAX.» Those signs are hung EVERYWHERE you look.
The hostess was unfriendly, leaving your tab on your table and promptly adding to it when you got something else.
We won’t be back.

Me and my Girlfriend have been to the Mongolian grill several times, each time we were blown away by the horrible customer service of the older Asian woman (Who is the owner). When we first walk in she points to tables and tells us to make our food (ok?) and she continues to hover over us as we make our food and takes meat out of the container! Then she tries to add sauces to our meal but we awkwardly resist. So we get our food cooked and sit down, she then stares at us for our entire meal. Dont ask for a to go box as she will yell at you. Upon leaving I look at my receipt and noticed she charged me more. I asked and he said «extra meat», I couldn’t believe it and there was no signs or anything. We wrote her a comment about how we felt but she is still the same.
Overall food is good but cranky un professional Asain woman ruins it.

Pros: fresh, quick, happy hour about $ 6 a person
Cons: lady who runs this joint is always seems grumpy, tells you where to sit.
it is convenient and quick!

Overall, a pretty good experience, but staff changes over the past year are apparent, and not for the better.
First of all, the food is great. Being a Mongolian Grill, it’s all about the quality of the ingredients, and the rest is what you make it. They have a great selection of meats, veggies and sauces, so it’s really up to you what you make of it.
For the first many years this place existed, there was the same hostess that was nearly always there, knew your name, friendly and outgoing and kept the whole place running. She has been replaced by another hostess who is nearly always there, rather unfriendly, has made comments about how I’ve stacked things in the bowl and seems rather displeased with being there.
If I were to feel like more of a welcome guest, it’s a five star place for what it is.

Party of four did not enjoy it entirely. Two of us thought the food was ok and one of us had a stomach problem afterwards. We’ve been to a few Mongolian BBQ places before but none of us has ever been told how to arrange our food in our bowls or how to do this or that. The woman there (I presume the owner) made us nervous as she watched over us. I don’t think I’d go back here on my next trip to Gig Harbor, WA.

I had extremely high expectations walking into this place after going to the Hot Iron in Mill Creek which was by far a ¹⁰⁄₁₀! I was extremely dissapointed. It was nothing like the other Hot Iron mongolian Grill. This place was a hole in the wall, dirty, loud/​annoying/​very unhelpful staff and just felt unclean. The food selection wasnt nearly the same, it did not have as many choices of veggies, meats and definitely not sauces. Mill Creek has a great selection of sauces to add after your meal is cooked, this place does not.
The service was HORRIBLE! When we walked in the woman behind the counter was on the phone and we stood there for quite a few awkward moments until she finally moved her hand and motioned us to just sit anywhere. While eating she had Beyonce playing quite loud over the stereo and singing along at an annoyingly high volume, especially because she sucked at singing! Then her family came in and well we didnt hear from her the entire rest of our meal. My boyfriend had to go get our refills and find us boxes behind the counter. After all that the meal for both of us came out to almost $ 30. Insanely over priced for what you get.
If you want GREAT mongolian, i recommend taking the drive to Mill Creeks Hot Iron. Definitely worth the gas getting there!

Probably a 2.5, but the hostess-​turn-​backup-​chef (owner?) was really nice.
I’m a big fan of the Mongolian Grill concept and I had high hopes for this place. The realities just didn’t meet the Unilocal-​fueled expectations.
When we arrived it was prime-​time dinner hours (7:30 on a Friday) and the place was probably ¹⁄₃ full and really not that busy. Nevertheless, 2 of the three meat selections were more or less empty and never refilled while we were there. The restaurant as a whole wasn’t very clean — especially as seen on the way back to the bathrooms.
There’s a lot of heap’n-help’n, make what you want goodness to be found in Mongolian Grills, but this place just didn’t impress compared to some other places in its genre.