Dining with a twist

Going into town and tackling the outlets for scrumptious delight is the ideal experience for the weekend. For those people who enjoy food fired over a grill, the first place to look is a barbeque. In fact, a trip to Bd's Mongolian Barbeque in Bethesda would be your best bet. Although the restaurant has fresh ingredients and good service, heed this warning: The consumer is solely responsible for the taste of his or her food.

The restaurant is very appealing to people walking the streets on a Saturday night looking for a venue to dine. For one thing, customers can feast all they want for the price of 20 dollars. This may seem a bit high for all you can eat, but the ingredients used to make the food are varied and fresh. The service is fast and friendly, and the waiters are there to help customers understand how to eat in the restaurant. Mongolian Barbeque also gets props from this food connoisseur for the original idea of being able to select the ingredients that make up your dish and seeing the food prepared in front of you.

The setting is both strikingly charming and contradictory. Adorning the walls are emblems exhibiting different Mongolian traditions. As you continue to venture further into the establishment, the setting gradually goes from authentic Mongolian to a "Welcome to the 90's" American motif. However, the contradictory setting did not discourage me from finally sampling the foods and sauces that Mongolian Barbeque had to offer.

To eat at Mongolian Barbeque, you must follow a certain procedure. When you are ready to eat, proceed to the buffet full of raw ingredients that are ready to be prepared by the cooks. Load your plate with what you desire. For all of you meat lovers, the restaurant offers beef, pork, chicken and lamb. Next the counter offers healthy vegetables that can potentially enhance the taste and nutrition of the dish. Lastly comes the sauce. Mongolian Barbeque offers more than 15 different varieties of sauces including barbeque, teriyaki and Mongolian Barbecue's own honey sauce. For the vegetarian consumer, you may either fry your vegetables or eat from the salad bar.

When the dish is ready to be cooked, bring your food to the chefs on call. On a flat circular grill, four or five cooks use knife savvy to chop, slice and dice your ingredients into a uniform plate of food.

For my dinner I selected beef, chicken, lamb, green peppers and corn. I lightly sprinkled my bowl with Mongolian Barbecue's honey sauce. But when I tasted my self-made delicacy, there was no taste from the sauce whatsoever. To add flavor I innocently smothered my meal with a large helping of soy sauce. Soon the meal became a gigantic salty and sauce-enveloped mess.

The Mongolian Barbeque redeems itself because it's all you can eat. So I was willing to approach the counter a second time and this time add more honey sauce to the bowl. The taste greatly improved, my opinion of the food transcended from inedible to simply scrumptious.

The Mongolian Barbeque is located on 7201 Wisconsin Avenue open Monday through Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. and Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.