The Last Hurrah of The Golden Horde

Eat Your Way Around the World in London is back on the road for the first time - what with one thing and another - since June, so The Profit Burglar and I bowled up at Covent Garden's Mongolian Barbecue on Wednesday night.

The M.O. at the Mongolian Barbecue is that you select sliced meat and veg along with spices and sauces and hand it over to the staff to be stir fried on a large flat steel and then served up. For all that the website contends that "transcripts of Marco Polo's writings mention Mongolian warriors cooking on upturned shields", this doesn't seem to be very authentic at all. I couldn't find anything else even vaguely Mongolian in London however, so any port in a storm. (I also remember when there were branches of the franchise all over London's suburbs, though now the central London establishment seems to be the only one left.)

Wikipedia has an entry on Mongolian Cuisine which - rather wonderfully relates that:

BD's Mongolian Barbeque, has opened even in Ulaanbaatar (ironically the first American chain to open in Mongolia), neither the ingredients nor the cooking method has anything in common with Mongolian cuisine.

(Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations since 2005.)