Saturday Night Stir Fry, If You Know What I mean....

 I don't know what that means but it sounded funny....

Hubby and I once again braved Saturday afternoon grocery shopping...what a zoo!! We did try to stick to our list and kept to the edges of the store, only venturing into the middle aisles to grab a couple of baking items!  I could see Hubby was coming up with an idea for dinner by what he was putting in the cart...bok choy, mushrooms, tofu, ginger root, steamed noodles... it turned out to be stir fry night in the Little Kitchen!  Stir Fry is one of those things that we really don't follow a recipe for.  If you like it, toss it in, if you don't like it, keep it out! Tonight Hubby and worked together in the kitchen to chop, stir, and fry our way to dinner!

While Hubby chopped up some of the following veggies:

• 1 onion
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1 red pepper
• 5 stalks (leaves) of bok choy, leaves and bottom parts
• 3 green onions
• a handful of mushrooms
• a handful of broccoli florets
• a few cloves of garlic, sliced
• a chunk of ginger, peeled and grated

 I patted the tofu dry with some paper towels and then diced up the tofu into bite size pieces!


Heat up a fry pan and add some canola oil.  To the oil I added:

• a few cloves of garlic, smashed
• a few coins of ginger, peeled
• a healthy pinch hot red pepper flakes
• a couple strips of lime peel

Once the oil was hot and fragrant, we fried the tofu pieces until crisp, transferring the done pieces to a bowl lined with paper towel.  Reserve the oil for your stir fry!

So we had a little help in the veggie department...tastes as good as ever!
When all of the tofu was cooked, it was time to heat up the pan for the stir fry!!

First I fried up the garlic, ginger, and onions.

Then added the mushrooms for a few minutes.  Next up, the rest of the veggies!

Put a large pot of water on to boil so you can cook your noodles.





Cook noodles according to package directions.

Transfer those noodles to the stir fry.

Add some fresh chopped cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice!

Hooray for team work!!


Ready to eat!!!  Hooray!!  Now where are my light sabre chop sticks?

Ravin' Review: Mongos Grill

After tons of holiday cooking, baking, and eating it was time to let someone else do the work! Our lunch stop today was Mongos Grill. We do go here quite often these days. Mongos is a stir fry place. The veggies, meat, noodles, and sauces are laid out buffet style so you get to fill your bowl and create your own masterpiece. I can honestly say I have never had the same meal twice here!

Big ol' bowl of stir fr

When you go to Mongos, you have a choice of getting the 'one bowl' stir fry, the unlimited bowls stir fry, or the soup, salad bar, and stir fry. We have never done the soup and salad bar here, we always go for the stir fry. Mongos provides 25 various veggies for you to choose from which get replenished often. They also offer 10 different protein choices including tofu for you to choose from. Once you choose all of your veggies, meats, and noodles, you have a huge choice of sauces and seasonings to choose from. Mix and match to your heart's content. The choice of 16 sauces plus other seasonings makes sure you get all the flavour you want.

My 'working the grill' blurry shot....oops

There are many tricks to 'stacking' your bowl so you can maximize your one bowl experience:

Hubby likes to use the frozen sheets of beef to make a wall but today that proved a might difficult. The line up for the grill was long and when the frozen meat thaws, you risk an avalanche of tasty goodness!

Notice the drooping meat at the sides...everything settled. Also note noodles on the counter.

My son swears by using the potato slices for his extended wall. He says it works wonders.

Right here under the meat you can see his potato wall...working quite well today!

Today I went with the snow pea wall....first I use the tongs to pile on the snow peas, then take the time to insert them between the edge of the bowl and the food already in the bowl. This worked quite well. I only wish I had taken the time to do this all around as once the meat on the other side thawed.....I had a bowl breach!

Note the bowl breach on the right...the snow peas worked well tough!

Today was a very busy day at Mongos and the line up for the grill was long. It is neat to watch the staff 'work the grill' and cook so many stir fries at once! The waiting really is the hardest part though.

Once the lovely staff take your bowl for frying, you still get more choices!! They will ask you if you want rice and they will give you a bowl or they will mix it into your stir fry....not just rice though. You can choose from white, brown, or fried rice! You can also have an egg added to the mix if you would like. They even crack the egg and cook it along with your food! After the cooking is done, you can even have your stir fry wrapped up in a tortilla or a flavoured wrap if you'd like!

Hubby's stir fry with an egg cooking and rice waiting to be added!

Even though Mongos offers seafood and gluten items, they are very accomadating for allergies. Hubby has a fish/seafood allergy and they will clean the grill for him and give his food extra room on the grill. If you are looking for gluten free, they keep a list of their gluten free sauces on the wall as well as a list of their other gluten free items. The Mongos staff also offer to get you veggies and sauces from the back if you are worried about cross contamination with the buffet style of service. You can also find a list of nutritional information on their website.

Despite being super busy, the food was quite good. The waitress was very nice and pleasant but did seem to have trouble keeping up with tables who needed refills on their drinks. The wait (for us) at the grill wasn't all that bad either. It looked like it slowed down quite a bit after we sat down with our cooked food. That is the one thing with Mongos is you will have to wait in line with your full bowl for them to cook it on the grill.

I have heard people complain about the actual food at this place as well as the taste but this all depends on what you choose to put in your bowl. The veggies are fresh, the meat is fozen and sliced thin. I do think they need to send the clean up crew more often for the floor. People tend to overflow their bowls with sauces or hand landslides of noodles and this makes messy, and slippery on the floor. This is also a great place to feed a hungry teen!

And let's not forget my lightsabre chop sticks from home!