Kublai Khan - Austin

I found this restaurant because I had to pick up something from someone that I needed to get back, and glad that I did. Very nice decorations, the covers on the booths could use replacing, but overall a nice looking place. You get menus and a silver bowl when you walm in, they take your drink order and anything that you order from the menu which has appetizers and different types of sushi on it, they advertise special drinks, but the drink menu on the table doesn't have any listed. You go to the line, start choosing your protein and other ingredients and then put it on a tray, grab the number on it and g ok to your table and place it in the holder to have the waitstaff bring it to you. Everything was fresh, delicious and prepared perfectly. The choice of the many sauces and different types of noodles was especially nice. All in all, a great meal that will have me coming back for more.

I have mixed feelings about this place. While I really wanted to enjoy my experience, there were some aspects that left me feeling uneasy. Let's start with the cleanliness... It definitely needs improvement. The stir-fry bar was a bit of a disaster zone, with raw chicken and veggies scattered about, sauce drips everywhere. It felt kind of gross. Seeing raw meat sitting in a tub at a salad bar type area just didn't sit right with me. I'm sure it's refrigerated, but I don't know about all that! Though the stir-fry itself was surprisingly tasty, despite the less-than-ideal environment (sketch). However, the sushi was a bit hit or miss. All of it was delicious, but one dish was completely different from what I ordered. When I brought it up to the waiter, they hesitantly brought a menu to disagree with me. I literally pointed out where she was wrong, and off she went to the kitchen to ask a chef. When she came back, she apologized and replaced it with a free dish, which was a nice gesture. Although preferably I would've rather been told ahead of time that they were missing ingredients, rather than getting to eat most of my meal while I'm waiting on a different dish that I ordered last minute to replace what they decided to send me instead of what I actually ordered. Now, onto the quirky part (the sushi delivery robot). It's definitely a unique touch, but it can be a bit of a nuisance with its music blaring and getting in the way of the servers. I really like the sushi here, but the cleanliness issues keep me from ordering from the stir fry bar. And the occasional mishaps with orders left me feeling a bit irritated. Considering how great the sushi is, I sort of expected a bit more.

On Sunday I joined a new gym with my girlfriend. After we joined ,we had an intense workout. Afterwards we saw this Happy Hour sign that caught our attention as we were discussing grabbing an appetizer a drink. We decided to on this restaurant due to the Happy Hour advertising sign ,along with a new experience. Neither of us had ever been! As we walked in we were greeted immediately by seated,which always excites me. As we were seated, we were given a menu.We didn 't receive any welcome intro ,that this is also a restaurant where you can pick your protein and veggies. Have them prepared as the Mongolian stir fry bowl. We also discovered we don 't offer happy hour the waitress said they have not taken the sign down since new owner purchased. Which in my opinion is false advertisement! That sign is what pushed our decision to dine there. So that was disappointing. Typically when you have never experienced a restaurant ,it 's always nice to have an understanding of how things operate,specials, drinks,food of the day etc. So that would have been extremely helpful. So we just ordered off the menu ,then later discovered the stir fry area on our own. Which I will be going back to try! I also would like to give them the chance to redeem themselves, hopefully . Our server could have been a little more nicer/helpful she just wasn 't very pleasant,although the hostess was . So it gave me mixed feelings. The Sushi on the other hand was awesome! Tasted very fresh, presentation was nice hot sake always makes me happy . lol The restaurant appeared very clean. Very neat. Very open ! I loved the feeling of freshness in the air. I will be going back for a second experience. I 'll keep you all updated. I hope the sign gets removed OR happy hour becomes a thing really soon.

Very tasty food once combined into a bowl that gets cooked on the stir fry stove. We were seated right of the bat walking in. The sign over the buffet said to keep the bowl flat and so I did, but I saw other people loading it up several levels. I have to admit that a flat leveled bowl once combined with noodles or fried rice was more than enough for me (6 foot 200 lbs). I will have to come back often to try other combinations. Little Metal Bowl

There are not many Mongolian BBQ options of the type popular in the 90s and 00s in Austin. This may the be only real one that is not combined with some other type of buffet. At a Mongolian BBQ, you choose all the proteins, vegetables, sauces, and sometimes noodles from a buffet style presentation, and the cook fries them on a huge flat grill in front of you. Kublai Khan is a reasonable take on the concept but there are some problems. There is very little explanation about what to do; after you walk in you are basically handed a bowl and have to figure out the system. Servers may not really speak English. Luckily there are at least some signs in the 'buffet ' area. A more serious issue is that the cleanliness at Kublai Khan is suspect. The buffet area is often kind of a mess with food scattered around. Some surfaces look pretty grimy and everything seems to have a bit of a film on it. When we sat down on the bench in the back, we could see the dirt ground into the fabric. Some of the food prep is a bit iffy, for instance it looks like the mushrooms are not washed and still have bits of dirt on them. I will say that I have not actually been sick from eating there. Out of curiousity I looked up the most recent food inspection score and it was 77. So not very good, but maybe not terrible? Having said all that, when you are finally eating the food is pretty tasty. Of course, this depends a lot on what items and sauces you get for yourself but I have found the flavor to be good. Portions again depend on you to some extent but you don 't get a huge amount of noodles. If you heap up tons of meat in your bowl they will add an extra charge, according to signage which I totally understand and agree with; I don 't like it when people are greedy at these places. I have not ordered any separate menu items so not sure about the quality of the sushi or anything else there. I wouldn 't go there expecting any incredible sushi for sure. If you really want some old style Mongolian BBQ Kublai Khan will work, with some caveats.