We tried a great little restaurant last night in the Little Apple (that’s Manhattan, KANSAS, if you’re keeping score at home). Bottom line: Tasty and fun but slightly overpriced.
Hu Hot is the latest iteration of the Mongolian grill for the American masses. Greater numbers of people seem ready to embrace the concept of putting your food in a bowl and carrying it to someone so he can cook it for you while you stand there and wait for it. There have been others before it, but Hu Hot might have the timing right.
The Spoon’s most important observation about the concept is that it delivers intense flavor, an exotic menu and an interactive experience in a relatively small physical footprint. This location was tucked away in the front corner of a shopping mall, and it was not roomy inside. Two servers, two cooks and one go-fer in the back had a crowd of 60 diners easily covered.
To give you an idea of the overall experience of eating at Hu Hot, we’d tell you that the food was fresh and hot. The flavors were true to their respective Asian heritage of Thai, Sechuan and Japanese. It was a bit more down to earth than P.F. Chang’s, like they’re not trying to impress anyone.
A bowl of rice and your choice of soup or salad accompanied the meal.
As far as preparation, stuff that was supposed to be gingery was gingery, and stuff that was supposed to be crispy was crispy. But there were some twists, such as just enough chili in the fried spring roll to sting your lips a bit. Tasty.
When it came time for throwing sauce on the stuff in the bowl, we chose pork and pad thai noodles with a few veggies. While traditional Mongolian grills have stuff like “garlic water” and “sa cha,” Hu Hot allows you to play around with combining flavors like Black Thai Peanut, Yellow Belly Curry and Feed the Hordes Hoisin to create crazy-tasty fusion.
Make your own or try it The Spoon Way: 3 ladles Black Thai Peanut, 1 ladle Feed the Hordes Hoisin, 1 ladle sweet red chili, 1 ladle ginger. A very nice Thai-style complement to pork pad thai.
The actual cooking was like any other Mongolian grill, if you’ve seen it. Two guys with spatulas turn your stuff over and over on a large round grill until it’s done.
Try the appetizer sampler to share with your family or group. The most compelling item is the potsticker that’s fried Rangoon-style.
For dessert, the 5-layer chocolate cake, called Choco Khan, will rock you.
Marketing Spoonful 