Golden Mongolian Restaurant

We had never tried Mongolian food before and when we walked in and were the only non-​Mongolians in this clean, plainly furnished, welcoming restaurant we knew that we chose well indeed. We were served delicious egg drop soup and had ordered the 13 dumplings and vegetable beef soup both to be shared and we were not sorry. There was lots of food and the big screen tv was eventually playing the haunting music of Mongolia performed by beautifully coiffed and dressed performers. They were enchanting and we did not have to endure inappropriate music which is the norm rather than the exception in ethnic restaurants. We will go again, for sure. The one dollar sign designation is almost too high for the quality of the food and the service as well.

This place is legit. — Mongolian girl

From what I understand Mongolian cuisine is very simple and humble meat and starch combinations with not much in between. This place serves no frills dishes but they are well done and fresh.

I have conquered the steppes of Mongolia! Okay, maybe not — but I have conquered the plates of Mongolia! As someone who has tried to cross off as many nations’ cuisines as possible without actually going too far out of my way to do so, I never actually thought Mongolia would be a country whose cuisine ever got scratched off the list. But color me shocked when I found out that there was an authentic Mongolian restaurant just spitting distance from where I live! I had to go!
Golden Mongolian Restaurant is a hole-​in-​the-​wall, but it’s both a comfortable and popular hole-​in-​the-​wall. As it was my first visit, I ordered way too much. The tsuivan noodles were excellent, with a wonderfully chewy texture and a rich, meaty flavor (I had the traditional beef) that was lightened by the fresh cucumber and scallions. It reminded me a bit of the hearty flavors of the food from the old Uzbekistan restaurant in Hollywood, but the tsuivan was definitely better than their plov. The dish is a bit on the oily side — my one complaint. This is more about richness than spice or flavor complexity; it’s hearty food for cold nights. The fried khuushuur were tasty, but they were pretty greasy. Letting them drain would make them more appealing. The pickled carrot relish was a nice compliment. By the time my beef buuz (steamed dumplings) arrived, I was already stuffed. I didn’t have any issue with saltiness that other posters have mentioned; if anything, they were a little too bland.
The Mongolian tea was odd, but I’m glad I had it. I appeared to be the only non-​Mongolian diner when I visited, and the Mongolian tea was brought to them right away. My server said most people (I guess she meant most non-​Mongolians) don’t like it. It’s basically hot milk with salt and a little green tea. It’s strange but not terrible, and I’m glad I tried it for the experience. The $ 1.50 price wasn’t too high for a real taste of Mongolian culture, and the salty quality wasn’t overwhelming. (It was less than an Indian salty lassi.)
There was just one server for an increasingly full room, but she did her best. The place is apparently popular with what I suppose is a decent-​sized Mongolian diaspora in L.A. Some of the Mongolian patrons leaving as I did asked how I liked the food, and I told them it was excellent. It was my first Mongolian food experience, but it won’t be my last. While I’m not sure how much I might enjoy this sort of cuisine in the summer heat, it’s perfect for colder weather. The soups going out to other tables looked fantastic, including a lamb soup in which the bowl was lined with a thin dough, like one big noodle.
I’m so happy I found Golden Mongolian!

LARGE portions! I didn’t expect the portions to be that huge. 1 order is good for 2 people.
Food has flavor. :)

Real authentic Mongolian traditional restaurant. All the meals are delicious and portion is big. Price is reasonable. Highly recommended. You can’t find any other restaurants with real mongolian food in LA. Rest of them are all chinese.

Since I have not been to any real mongolian restaurant I cannot say I have had better. This all I know and I do not find this tasty, plus there is msg in the food which I suspect is quite a lot. The better dishes here are the noodle soup and the fried lamb. The price is reasonable and parking can be difficult around the restaurant.

I ordered the beef and chicken dumplings, and also the beef noodles. The beef dumplings are much better than the chicken. One order of dumplings comes with six and they are quite large. There were two of us and we had enough leftovers for me to have them for lunch and dinner the next day! I’m a big guy that loves value so this definitely made me :)
The service wasn’t fantastic, but it has a laid back and decent atmosphere.

Portions are huge. Food was delicious. The prices were cheap.
Unfortunately the tap water had tiny fruit flies (2) in one of out cups. Gross.

I came here on a Friday night. I was quickly greeted by the waitress who was Mongolian. She was very helpful in explaining the dishes and recommended the «Tsuivan”(Mongolian equivalent of Chow-​Mein) and the «Huushuur”(fried dumplings). So I tried both and they had much bigger portions than what I expected for the price. The food was new to me but it was definitely worth it.
As far as the restaurant atmosphere, it seemed to me like a good place to get a quick meal as well as to bring friends. Also they had a full shelf of souvenirs from Mongolia worth checking out. They’re open until 11pm which is a plus. One interesting thing was the sign outside said sushi but they didn’t offer it at this time.
I’m definitely coming back to try more dishes. If you’re looking for an authentic Mongolian food as well as lunch specials with Mongolian BBQ, this is the place to come to.

I came to LA for 4 days trip and came to this place 3 days straight, I loved to food «all». Thank you guys and good luck!

What a pleasant discovery! This modest restaurant is a hidden treasure only found for those who look. I knew to come here because of the bright sign on Wilshire on the edge of Ktown and Westlake. Street parking was a cinch since wilshire parking opens up after 7PM.
Buuz (5.50) — The national dish of Mongolia comes with 6 steamed meat dumplings. It wasn’t my favorite. The beef was a bit like a hamburger patty.
Tsuivan (8.95) — These noodles are similar to general pan fried Asian noodles, but less greasy and with a light savory flavor complimented with cucumbers.
Niislel Salad (4.95) — Was just a potato salad. My friend described an added zest that I didn’t experience. I’d probably pass on this one.
Huushuur (5.45) — The star of the meal. The group loved the chicken version over the beef. These fried flat dumplings were easy to cut in half to share and very tasty. Reminded my friend of chicken pot pie. We got two orders
This was just the right amount of food for a group of 4 and I’m coming back to try the other Mongolian dishes!

The ONLY authentic Mongolian restaurant in LA and, who knows, maybe in the entire US of A. If you are familiar with real Mongolian food, then you know that it is hearty, delicious and filling.
Try ordering 4 – 5 different dishes. My recommendations are the following: khuushuur (3 pieces per order), dumplings with sour cream (highly recommend!), tsuivan (mongolian fried noodles), buuz and get an order of the potato salad.

Awesome food, fairly priced! Food is very authentic, real real Mongolian food, not the mall kind. I have to say my favorite restaurant in LA. Wish the location could be better to attract more foot traffic!

OMG! This food was FANTASTIC! Haven’t really had proper Mongolian food And came here for the first time and loved it. We got the Mongolian beef bbq, chicken tsuivan noodles, and beef dumplings. Definitely get the beef bbq and tsuivan noodles, the dumplings were fine. The dumplings are HUGE. It’s mostly skin and it’s about the size of half of a baseball with the meat about the size of a jawbreaker. It was good but nothing special. The bbq was very flavorful and enjoyed the purple cabbage salad — it tasted just like cole slaw. The side salad that came with the dumplings that was mostly orange in color, carrot shavings maybe, was meh. We didn’t finish it and took it home. The noodles of our dish were chewy and more like that Ethiopian bread you get or thicker crepes or pancakes. Very good. Can’t wait to come back. Street parking only, free wifi, about 4 booths and the rest are tables, casual place. They have only been open 6 months and very friendly service. On a Saturday night there were only 3 other tables by the time we left so maybe most of their business is during lunch.

Decided to try out Mongolian food for lunch — the real kind… not the mall food. This is place used to be a Korean restaurant known as Red Pepper and now it’s a family owned and operated restaurant.
Came in for lunch on Monday around 1230pm and it was pretty quiet. About maybe 4 or 5 tables eating. Mainly, people come here to get their food to go instead of dining in. Though it’s a nice place to come and chill if you don’t want to deal with the hustle and bustle of a noisy lunch crowd.
Served with complimentary egg drop soup and wonton crackers, I ordered their two popular items:
1. Buuz — 6 piece dumplings with a choice of either beef or chicken or veggie style. If you order this, it’ll take 20 mins to prepare. The 6 dumplings are pretty big and filling. The wrappers are thick and chewy, which I liked. The filling inside is about the same size of a $.25 bubblegum ball.
Two stars off: The chef messed up my order and gave me chicken instead of beef. Since I was already pressed for time (work lunch) I stuck with the order (didn’t wanna wait for another dish or pay another price). Man, this dish was way too salty!!! I was also disappointed they didn’t have the potato salad side dish that the other customers raved about. Instead, I got this nasty shredded side dish that was so overpowered with onion, yuck!
Sorry, but Din Tai Fung’s dumplings still reign supreme.
Ended up doing a lemon cleanse to help get rid of the taste. They were apologetic and asked if I wanted to get something else. Though they could’ve comp a dessert or Mongolia iced tea woulda been nice.
2. I ordered the huushuur, which is their flatten meat dumpling dish. It comes with three big dumplings — they got this one right — chicken protein with a side of shredded pickled carrots and daikon. It was bland — not as salty as the dumplings. I liked the shredded pickle carrots. I ended taking the two pieces to go.
One star off: Service today was REALLY off. They had only one server working, and so I sat near the cashier booth otherwise, service would take forever. They had their son (possibly) serving today and he was forgetful — no utensils, water or napkins. Had to flag him down a couple of times to get the stuff. He just looked off today. Nice shy boy, but that’s about it.
I really wanted to like this place, but after today’s experience, will not be returning :(

There are plenty of places that claim to have Mongolian food, but unfortunately that’s just clever marketing exploiting the average American’s ignorance of a unfamiliar culture.
Golden Mongolian restaurant is the ONLY real and authentic Mongolian restaurant in Los Angeles. And the food is not only genuine and true to the kinds of food actually eaten in Mongolia, but it is very good.
My wife is Mongolian. And she’s very good at cooking traditional food. But we are both very happy to have this restaurant for those days when we want some Khuushuur (fried meat dumpling) or Buuz (streamed dumpling) without having to do all the work to make them ourselves.
This place is great. We are very happy to have it.

This is… real deal authentic food. If you have even the slightest flare of adventure within, then this is an excellent place. Definitely would recommend it on a cold day too.
We went here with a friend who is originally from Mongolia, and she ordered several of the main dishes for us to share. We had the dumplings, a noodle dish, a meatball dish, a meat hot pocket, and a potato salad. Everything was so savory — the meat is very tender and juicy, super savory and each dish has its own unique flavor. The potato salad was tangy and had a Soviet flare to it. Overall the food is very different and exciting; certainly not your run-​of-​the-​mill generic Asian food or Western-​friendly build-​your-​own-​noodle-​bowl.
Ambiance/​service — the waiters were all friendly and accommodating and the restaurant was clean and well-​decorated with Mongolian souvenirs. And, prices were incredible for the huge portions food!
FYI, this is no where near the fake «Mongolian BBQ» that is more commonly seen in L.A. Also, not for the strict vegan or vegetarian or low-​fat dieter.

Right off a quiet part of Wilshire, this restaurant seems to be more of a to-​go or lunch spot than your next dinner date spot.
My boyfriend and I walked over on a Sunday afternoon, a few minutes before they opened. The employees speak limited English and are quite shy but super nice and friendly.
We ordered their recommended noodle dish and a rice dish, but both ended up using similar ingredients. Both had an interesting taste, nothing like I had tried before and we very much enjoyed it. but I guess the similarity in dishes is what happens when you’re not feeling very adventurous. We also ordered their famous beef dumplings, which tasted gamey to me for some reason. The side of potato salad that came with the dumplings was certainly an interesting combination, but the potato salad itself wasn’t any special.
My first time having non barbecue Mongolian food and I liked it, but it wasn’t out of my mind extraordinary. It was very homey. I don’t know if I’ll be back considering if I was craving this, I’d get Thai or Chinese instead. But maybe it just takes some time getting used to this new cuisine (it’s new for me!).

I’ve been exposed to legit Mongolian food a few times last year (anybody thinking the cheesy AYCE build-​it-​yourself noodle gimmicks around town are real are fooling themselves) and decided to give this place a try. I went in during a quiet spell, but got a good vibe from everything.
Restaurant is clean and the tables are big/​comfortable. My waitress was diligent and very polite. We chatted a bit about some local Mongolian community members and the boss and other guy working the restaurant knew who I was talking about. As I understand it, a lot of the Mongolian community lives in KTown, so it didn’t surprise me that we had some friends in common.
The menu is simple, but for a place that just opened, that’s not shocking. I had the beef dumplings («buuz»), which were as good as the homemade ones I was introduced to last year. I also tried the shredded beef noodles («Tsuivan»), which were very clean and fresh — not overcooked or oversauced. Both were very filling (expect big portions with this place) and delicious.
Prices are very reasonable, with salads as low as $ 4.00 and the most expensive entrée at $ 17.00. Most of the dishes are based around noodle soups and dumpling-​related entrees.
Mongolian food is milder, and not strong in spice or sauce flavor. Don’t expect the spicy kick of Korean kim chi or Szechwan hot pot. But the portion size won’t leave you hungry, and given what the weather can be like in Mongolia + that food is to fuel the body, I expect this be a fantastic place especially for (the few) cold, rainy days in LA.
I also expect this to become a regular haunt for me.