"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."
