The best of...
If you want food and you want it within five minutes, you go to a fast food restaurant, likely using the drive through.
If you want to go to one of those places where you get to see your food made right in your face, you most likely need a big wallet.
If you want to go somewhere you get to pick and choose every little thing you eat, you're thinking about a buffet.
Usually these three restaurant characteristics - Getting food Fast; Made in front of you; and complete control - don't all cross in one place. That's not the case at the Eugene Mongolian Grill. When you enter the building, you are seated within minutes of your arrival, though you stay there only long enough to drop your coat.
Meandering to the back of the large room that is the dining area, you are presented with a buffet-like setting of ingredients. There is the noodles, which is the foundation of the meal, and then things ranging from peanuts to pineapple to tofu. A selection from about 14 sauces gets you set for the next level of Mongolian Grill: The Grill itself.
Done with your food preparation, you hand your bowl off to the chef. He turns around and dumps it onto what is best described as an ardent - very hot - drum. Using a utensil that looks like two gigantic chopsticks he pushes your food around the circle of the drum until it is good and ready.
The food - exquisite - is filling. The largest size - if you can finish your first bowl - is refillable, but it is a feat getting there.