Ruzhen Mongolian Grill

Me and my friend came here around 1130 tonight and we ordered and within 10 min our food came out. Amazing quality and fast service! Definitely going to stop by again.

Good deal. For $ 11 you can eat a lot. They do have quite a few options of sauce which is great.

This place is such a good deal. You can either do all-​you-​can-​eat for $ 9, or pay by weight. I opted for the weight, and after filling my bowl to the brim only ended up spending $ 7. There are quite a few sauce options that you can add before or after (but the after sauces aren’t the same as the before, so calculate carefully). The meat cooks pretty quickly on the grill as it is sliced pretty thinly, but the vegetables take longer. My vegetables were nowhere near cooked enough. I’m not sure if they would let me re-​cook, but if I came back I would ask. Broccoli, and bell peppers are pretty hardy veggies and need more than 2 minutes on a grill. I would gladly sacrifice some time to getting less raw food.
I’ll come back — it’s cheap, well situated, and I might be able to mitigate the vegetable issue by telling them I like my food more cooked next time.

Ruzhen mongolian grill is a great, fast, cheap and tasty place to drop in for a meal if your in the university district. We stopped by on a Friday night around 7 and the place definitely was popular, but was by no means packed or super busy. The restaurant is large with ample seating and clean. The serve staff were all friendly, but since this establishment is a serve yourself I can’t judge too harshly here. My biggest complain is that the serve station was very sticky, but again that’s to be expected at any joint where you ladle spoonfuls of sauces onto your plate in a help yourself manner.
In typical Mongolian grill fashion, you are given a bowl in which you can fill with as many different and as much toppings as you would like. They give you two noodle choices (rice and wheat) which I thought was nice and a bit different. They had ample selection of various meats and veggies to place in your bowl. Much more choice than other Mongolian grills I’ve visited in the past. The sauce/​oil selection was a bit more unique, they gave you options such as curry or pineapple to use. One thing I really loved was that there was also a full sauce station for after your dish is cooked! I’ve never seen this before and I thought it was brilliant. Typically I find myself dousing my bowl in sauce only to receive the finished product dry, with no way really to rectify this. The sauces were thickened versions of the liquids you can add to your uncooked meal and again had a very large selection.
Price wise this joint cannot be beat. AYCE for about 9 dollars a person, but you’re not able to take anything home (obviously). You can also opt for a pay per pound option where you weigh and pay prior to having your food cooked. This seemed to be the most popular option as you can also add up to 2 cups of rice and as much sauce as you’d like after your meal has been cooked without additional cost. If you pay per pound then you are able to ask for a box for any unfinished items.
Overall I was really impressed with Ruzhen. I’ve been to my fair share of Mongolian grills and I think this may be one of my favorites. You do not receive any appetizers or soup with your meal, but the extra sauces and wide selection make up for this in my mind. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is craving Mongolian BBQ and I will 100% be returning.
Of note: there is no parking lot for Ruzhen. You will need to street park somewhere in the university district.

There are rare instances in where my bowel movement agree with my taste buds… And they both hate this place. No goddamn flavor, garbage choices for sauce, and will give you the runs. Stay away for your own safety.

Under $ 20 for two AYCE? Awesome! I love mongolian grills and I am disappointed in the lack of them in Seattle but after returning to this one after a couple years and seeing how it has improved has made me into a regular. It is far from the best but has a good selection of veggies, meats and sauces. However I do wish they had better yakisoba noodles.

This place used to be pretty good but this recent visit and turned me off of them… I think forever.
The idea of weighting the food before you pay I liked. I could fill it up to go and it was about the same price as it was before they changed their pricing.
My biggest annoyance was from how the food turned out. It was like the cook had never cooked food before. The meat was over cooked and in uncut chunks (it was never cut up while in the cooking process) and the veggies were all under cooked. Except the zucchini… the zucchini was perfect. The cook didn’t add any oil or water to it so it was completely reliant on the oil that you added. This is part of what caused a lot of it to be burnt or not cooked. There needs to be water or something added to it to cook the veggies better. Don’t get me wrong, I added a LOT of oil (my to-​go box is swimming in oil)… but it was still burnt.

We lived in the U-​District for three years and this was our go to place to eat. There is plenty of seating and you can pick from All You Can Eat to Pay By Weight. We usually picked the second option as we were able to take leftovers home with us.
You serve yourself and let me say, the food is fresh and great! There are a plethora of different sauces to choose from, tons of veggies and meats! Noodles ahoy! You’re allowed two scoops of rice but that’s really more than you can eat.
They will cook your food for you right there, and do a great job. The establishment was clean and tidy when we last went.
Really the best place to customize your food. I really miss this place and will be driving out to the district soon to get our fix!

I live nearby, and I come here pretty regularly. It’s buffet style, where you make your plate out of a selection of meats, vegetables, noodles and sauces, which is then cooked up on a big grill. It’s not going to be the most gourmet food you’ll ever eat, but in my opinion it’s the best bang for your buck on the Ave. You get huge plate of whatever you want for $ 8 if you don’t go too overboard. Then they have sauces and rice you can add for free. I would really recommend this place to anyone, especially if you are on a budget. It’s super satisfying, the service is good, and I recommend everyone try this place at least once.

Went with my roommates to chow down on some quality food.
Environment:
The interior of this building is pretty unique. Lots of exposed bricks and arches give this place a «castle-​like» feel. Plenty of seating and it’s a great place to come if you have a large party.
Quality of food:
It’s the
. Unlimited meat, vegetables and noodles. You can add the sauces to your liking and they also have rice on the side with various curried/​sauces you can add to your dish. Honestly, this is my favorite buffet type of place to eat at in the area.
Quality of service:
It’s all self service so no need to wait for your food! The person at the cash register was pretty and the people making the food on the grill were pretty cool people.

$ 8.99 all you can eat, OMG!!!
For any collage student at The University of Washington this is a gold mine place to eat. I’d forgotten all about it till I was seeing a movie and a buddy suggested it. Totally great call on this fine dining.
When u talk simple concepts in dining this is as basic as it gets. You have a row of containers with beef, pork, chicken, veggies and noodles. The you place into bowl and turn to the big grill and hand the man your bowl. Sit back watch the show and he hands you a plate of steaming food. I now will be going back very soon.
$ 20 and a date is perfect for this place. If satisfies all your needs.

I’m a HUGE fan of the mongolian grill and this place was a nice treat! Let’s be honest, the place isn’t very pretty, it’s a little boring to look at, but don’t let that fool you, the food here is EXCELLENT! I’ve seen bad MG’s, but this place is really good. I think they could probably add a few more ingredients, but by no means a deal breaker. I love this place and plan to return many times if they can keep up the quality!

This place confirms why I don’t like Mongolian BBQ…
Their selection was alright … It was somewhat fresh but there was Nothing fancy. Only seafood I saw were small pieces of fish. I wish they would at least had a choice of shrimp or eggs?
My meal ended up being $ 8.82 and the other close to $ 8. I didn’t choose the AYCE because I’m pretty sure I can’t finish that much food plus you can’t take home leftovers.
I also followed the paper posted on the wall of the list of ingredients on how to flavor your bowl of goods and my food ended up being bland and tasted like straight up greased vegetables, meat, and noodles. I ended up dipping everything in plum sauce and tried some of the coconut curry sauce others raved about. I sadly picked out the veggies and noodles that I could eat.
I got the wheat noodles and I think it tasted better than the rice noodles. The rice noodles were even blander than mine… Is that even possible? There was no flavor at all even after putting sweet chili and some other kind of sauce.
The worst part was the meat. The cooks should know that sliced meat cooks fast and when I got my cooked food back, it was burnt, dried, and hard. Some of my noodles were fairly black and everything was just sad.
I’m definitely not coming back again. I gave this restaurant a try because. I’m actually not sure why lol maybe because all the other food options weren’t appealing that night. Plus, I was never a huge Mongolian BBQ fan in the first place.
Nice meeting you, Ruzhen. Peace out.

This place used to be a McDonald’s among many other establishments over the years and the décor is very much left over from that previous era. If you are a fan of Mongolian grill style restaurants, this one will basically do the job without really standing out in any way. I stopped in for all you can eat lunch on a Friday which I thought ran until 3:00pm but the sign outside said it was all day. Not sure if that is every day or just a special they were running.
When you place your order, you choose between all you can eat or pay by weight which I guess depends on how much self control you want to have. I happily went for all you can eat since I was really hungry and didn’t want to limit myself in any way. After piling a bunch of meats into my bowl, which was larger than I was expecting, I chose from the vegetable area a little more selectively. Finally, it was time to dump a bunch of various sauces in hopes of creating a perfect flavor combination.
After a few minutes of my gigantic pile of food cooking on the gigantic circular grill, it was time to drag my feast over to one of the many available tables. There’s tons of seating and hardly any of it was being used so I pretty had the run of the place while I was there. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t deserted by any means, it’s just that the amount of space they have made it seem like the place was empty when there was really a steady stream of people going in and out while I was there. Oh, I almost forgot, you also get to add two scoops of rice to your winter harvest because, of course you do.
Final thoughts: The place was relatively clean, the staff was present, and the food more than filled the empty space it was intended for. I may come back at some point just because I love Mongolian Grill, but it wouldn’t be super high on the priority list.

I used to go Ruzhen back when I was in college (I graduated in 2008), but hadn’t been back for several years… until today. I met a friend for lunch in the University District today and we ended up coming here. When I was last here, they only had the «all you can eat» option, so I was pleased to see that they now allow you to pay by weight instead, if you so choose (which also allows you to take home leftovers — the all you can eat option does not.)
The procedure at Ruzhen is now:
Decide whether you want to pay by weight or do all you can eat. (You’d have to eat a lot to make the all you can eat worth it – like almost two pounds.)
If you want all you can eat, you pay then, but if you pay by weight, you fill your bowl and then pay.
After paying, you give your bowl to the cook who will grill it up.
Once cooked, you can also take two scoops of rice and add one of about 6 different sauces.
The choices for the meal are wheat and rice noodles, various veggies, frozen fish, pork, beef, or chicken. The meat was still more or less frozen, but I didn’t mind that since it means it was adequately cool, which is always a bit worrisome at «salad bar» type places.
I think the choices of ingredients has decreased somewhat over the years. The bowl-​filling station had a lot of empty space. But there’s still a good number of choices, as well as various flavored oils you can add to your meal. (Some of the oil is inevitably lost due to the cooking method, so I’d recommend being liberal with it.)
The overall atmosphere is casual and maybe seems a little run-​down, but the food is good, filling, quickly cooked, and reasonably priced. The cashier was also friendly and helpful in explaining the process and different options. It’s a good option for an affordable and tasty meal in the University District.

Good food, weird vibe.
My boyfriend and I were craving Mongolian, so we went on Unilocal and found Ruzhen and decided to check it out. The food was really good, but the experience was a little strange.
We walked in and NO ONE was there. So, we proceed to read the signs and opted for the weighted option instead of the all you can eat option. As we were finishing dishing up to take our bowls to the grilling station, we were scolded by the cashier and told to never dish-​up until we talk to the cashier about the options first. I thought it was kind of funny, so I went with it.
We then grilled our food and sat down. It was a little bland. Make sure you add enough sauce. I went to grab a small container or Sriracha and the cashier stopped me. He told me it was probably cross-​contaminated and not to use it. I was weirded out and proceeded to put the bottle down and walk away. The cashier then tried to stop me and convince me to get Sriracha after all. I thanked him and told him that I didn’t want to risk getting sick…
I then went to sit down without Sriracha and my boyfriend and I felt like the owner kept coming by and watching us eat. Beside the fact that he kept walking by us, first he came over and wiped the CLEAN table next to us. Then, he walked to the back of the building and was standing behind a window looking at us and when my boyfriend looked at him, he pretended to touch a light-​bulb and walked away. Finally, he went and got Windex and started washing the CLEAN window RIGHT OUTSIDE of our table. He was starting at us while we were trying to finish our meal.
The food was pretty good, but the experience was overall weird. We didn’t end up eating our food and we decided to just leave. I don’t think I will be going back any time soon.

GREAT price: $ 8.99 for All You Can Eat. $ 7.45 for 1.5lbs.
FRESH Veggies, a big variety of sauces, and nice employees. Just a bit warm, kinda sucks to be sweating while your eating non-​spicy food. So four instead of five stars, crank up the AC and this place is a winner for Mongolian

First off for what it is, it is a great place, lot of food at a good price and clean. Could do with some interior style but for what it’s worth it was great.
My disappoint came from a review on another site that show this place to have real Mongolian food and not the Taiwanese grill that’s just called Mongolian. There is no, Mongolian sauce in Mongolia. I couldn’t even get a milk tea.

A decent Mongo grill place with decent price, location, seating area and food.
The new pricing is really quirky. The first option is 8.99 for all you can eat, where you can make as many rounds as you want but can’t take any leftovers. The second option is by weight, which the rate is I believe 6.50 per pound, and you make one round but you are allowed to take leftovers. So you really have to think about which option you want before you go in.
The ingredients, like many people have stated before are a little below average, but I think it’s been slightly exaggerated. If you’ve been to Mongolian grill places before, then nothing about the food here will surprise you. And I think Ruzhen recognizes all this, and does a good job of adding a lot of extra sauces on the side, like coconut curry and bbq sauce that go pretty well with the food.
My only advice is that you put a lot of the pre-​cooking sauce in. Like put a lot of soy sauce, garlic, hot oil, etc, or your dish will come out a little bland.
Besides that, Ruzhen won’t blow you away, but it’ll will be sure to satisfy your Mongolian grill graving.

I come here whenever I need veggie fix. Because I can get a ton of vegetables, but I can still get a side of meat too. Usually I go for the all you can eat option, which I’m pretty sure is slightly cheaper than by paying by the pound.
I usually start off with two bowls. One I fill up with meat (fish isn’t too bad here), and the other with vegetables (spinach, broccoli, bok choy, baby corn, etc). Then I put garlic sauce, hot oil, and soy sauce on both.
Then I add the noodle on top of the veggies and put sauce on that too. Although, I think the sauce doesn’t really stick once you start cooking it…
Anyway, I gave this place a 3 star bc the food seems to be pretty fresh. And there’s a large variety. I just don’t think that the sauces that they give you to put on it after it cooks tastes very good… It’s ok, just not fantastic. And trust me, you need the sauce afterwards, otherwise it’s dry.
Overall, I like to go to Ruzhen because of the variety, but it’s definitely not my favorite place to eat on the Ave.