The
Scene
Community
Edition
THE ARIZONA
REPUBLIC
Saturday,
April
4, l998
INCREDIBLE
SHRINKING MEAT
If
you're a first-timer at YC's, pile and squish your food
Shrinkage happens. It affects payrolls. Free time. Cotton clothes in hot water. But, most importantly, meat.
SCOTT:
Perhaps that "most importantly" part really only happens at
restaurants like YC's Mongolian BBQ, since those who have just been laid
off due to shrinking payrolls probably don't give a darn about shrinking
meat. And their free time certainly isn't shrinking.
Anyway, where was I?
LISA: I think that's one of the great unanswered questions of our lifetime.
SCOTT:
At Mongolian, you load your bowl (small or large, depending on your appetite
and cash on hand) from among the many items arranged buffet-style. Offerings
include meat, vegetables, noodles and sauce.
You hand your bowl and its contents to the cooks at the end, who dump
everything onto a very large and very hot grill. A dash of water is added
and your food is stirred and tossed until cooked. Contents are placed
back in the bowl and you head toward a vacant table.
Only
thing I worried about was having my food co-mingled with some tofu eater's
lunch. The cooks will slap two bowls on the grill at a time, and I noticed
a few errant soy-based products being tossed around.
LISA:
At least there wasn't any cheese in there. Then we would have never heard
the end of it. I used to be a YC's regular (when I lived closer) but haven't
been in since a major overhaul last year. The new decor, including textured
walls, makes the place look like an actual restaurant now, an improvement
from the plain cafeteria look it had gone with in the past.
But then again, I never really went to YC's for the look. It's the tasty
stir fry that allows a fat-grain counter like me to load up a huge bowl
of food without feeling hardly any guilt at all.
SCOTT: I was warned about the shrinkage factor. Lisa, who always is ready with helpful advice - "Your car is the worst, I hope nobody sees me in it" - told me to pile on the food because it's only about half the size by the time it's cooked.
LISA:
Yes, Scott, like many YC's first-timers, was a little embarrassed by the
mash method that is required to get a decent sized bowl of food by the
end of YC's process. He didn't believe me when I told him, and even when
he saw a respectable-looking guy in front of us moosh down his meat with
his knuckles, he continued his shock, whispering, "Eeeeuw. Do you
think that guy washed his hands before he did that?"
But, after watching a few others do it, too, he realized the great secret
of YC's: It is socially acceptable to play with your food.
SCOTT:
Yes, mash it with your knuckles. Squish it with your fingers. Munch on
raw vegetables while you wait in line for your food to be cooked. Anything
to put yourself on level playing field with the shrinkage demons.
The problem is you choose your meat first. The beef, pork ad chicken look
like meat wafers. Each small, thin piece is rolled, taking up a lot of
bowl room.
I'd rather gather noodles and a few random veggies whose taste can easily be altered by sauces. Then I'd want to fill the remainder with beef, pork and chicken. A bowl 'o meat. That works.
LISA: Scott finally got into the squooshing game, tentatively ramming his own knuckles into the bowl, even giving it a stomp with his heel for good measure. (OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little for effect there.) Even so, he only filled his bowl to the brim, which made me look like an absolute pig with the mountain of broccoli, mushrooms, tofu and noodles that I had sculpted.
SCOTT:
I am of the belief it is impossible to pig out on food items that were
not once part of a hoofed animal. Oh yeah, those 18 pieces of broccoli
are going to add a calorie or two. I load on many sauces (to enhance the meat while hiding any residue veggie taste) and hand my bowl to the grill masters. It is returned to me about 15 seconds later. Major shrinkage. I thought those who had piled way too much food were simply taking advantage of the one-price-fits-all deal.
Didn't matter. I still had enough to satisfy my appetite. OK, if there's a second visit, I'm really scrunching my meat.
LISA: The sizzling bowl was as I remembered, although I was a little disappointed that they didn't offer lemon juice in the selection of sauces, - that was my favorite. Since the overhaul, they have added a handful of recipes that you can concoct by mixing different sauces. But the one I tried did not hold a candle to my old standby - nine scoops of lemon juice. There was some new offerings that almost made up for that loss, including a new beef soup and these crunchy fried wontonlike things you could sprinkle on top of your stir fry.
SCOTT: I was surprised how much I liked YC's, what with the many non-meat products available. Despite the presence of tofu, I give it three stars.
LISA:
YC's always has and always will get five stars from me for a unique
and tasty dining experience, although I am considering subtracting one
star for the loss of the lemon sauce.
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