Lee’s Mongolian Grill

I would give no stars if possible. My wife and I went in yesterday and the cook had a damn phone charging on top of a stack of plates and the waitress was drinking beer! The afternoon of 6÷2÷16. We will NEVER be back. Picture in comments.

Very low quality restaurant. The food tasted like it had been soaked in an inappropriate ribs style BBQ sauce and the waitress was running around the store throwing a temper tantrum. A cook had to come over and run the till when we wanted to pay. Incredibly unprofessional.

This is really sad. This used to be our favorite Mongolian Grill — when the Lee’s actually owned it. We started to notice a huge difference last year. For one — hot dogs? Yes — sliced up hot dogs.
Our last trip in — really our last — was not good. First, we had to wait to be seated because «Lizzie» was busy screaming at an unhappy customer on the phone. «You got your free meal, what else do you want from me?» Once her «boss» (the new owner’s son) left the grill to grab the phone from her, she was able to assume her duties. She told us to pick whatever table and come get bowls from her. In the meantime, the place was filling up with smoke while no one was manning the grill with food cooking on it.
I always ask the cook to not pour water in my food — it makes it really bland. When I asked him, he snipped back at me that it was going to be really hard. He then practically threw my plate at me.
While we were eating, drinks were not refilled and we had to listen to «Lizzie» complain about the customer on the phone — to every customer who came in. She also was the only waitress working, and they were packed. A point which she told many customers. When a second person came in — I think maybe the owner — she snapped at her to clean tables in spanish.
So, no more Lee’s. And apparently the one on Coburg Rd. is also owned by this same family.
Jung’s it is!

Save yourself the hassle and stomach problems by going to Jung’s on W 11^th in Eugene. You’ll thank me, I promise. This place was good when it first opened. Shortly after it was swept up by the swiftly moving hand basket headed straight for hell. I had high hopes for this Mongolian grill, given it’s a lot closer to my home than the one on W 11^th. It would’ve been so nice to drive 10 minutes instead of almost 30. But it’s just not worth it.
Let’s start with the fact that they are cheap and it shows. Meat is cut up into tiny pieces, smaller than you’d cut up for your kids. They don’t offer second bowls unless you ask, which are begrudgingly delivered, and they are significantly smaller than the first. They have a 6 sauce scoop limit. They also have hot dogs on their line.
The waitstaff is pretty much useless and they all clearly hate their jobs. It’s obvious they got in over their heads and lost money, so they are stuck until they can at least break even, or their lease is up. Everyone has this pissy/​sour look on their faces. They act like you coming into the restaurant to eat and be served is the single biggest inconvenience you could ever imagine. Like I said, they don’t offer second bowls unless you ask and when they bring them, they’re kid size bowls. They clearly want you to eat as little as possible and charge you the most amount of money.
The six scoops of sauce limit is beyond ridiculous. They claim it’s because the food burns quickly. You know, there’s a pretty simple solution to that… turn the damn grill down! Nope. That makes too much sense and you’re using more of their product. So they don’t allow it. The six scoop limit leaves the food dry and tasteless. They don’t give you any sauce combination suggestions or anything. Just posted signs warning you not to use more than 6 scoops, which even that much is frowned upon.
The only time they are anxious to deal with you is cashing you out. Damn they are quick to take your money! Like ripping it out of your hand to get you out of the restaurant a little faster. They begrudgingly serve you, rip the money out of your hand and kick you out as soon as possible. They’ve redefined the «get your shit and get out» attitude.
There are far better Mongolian restaurants in town. Save your money for those. Such as Jung’s.

The food is adequate for this type of place, but a bit over priced. I am quite dissatisfied with the service. We had an issue using our Groupon, and the hostess would not correct our bill, and didn’t inform us that we did not get the entire value of the voucher. Seems shady.

Save yourself the stomach problems and go to the Mongolian grill on west 11^th. Went there to save the time driving. The host who first greeted us couldn’t speak English to save her life, and couldn’t figure out what sweet tea was… Might be helpful to be somewhat fluent on the language. Anyways on to the food. The buffet area was… Messy to say the least. Improperly labled food, the «bacon» as they call it (pork I assume) was thawed. Like floppy thawed. As far as the veggies goes there was a moderate selection only odd things was smack dab in the middle of all these veggies was a tub of hotdogs… cut up hotdogs. Not. Good. Oh and the shrimp is salad shirmp not the regular size stuff. I personally couldn’t see myself returning. Too sketchy for me.

Been here before but it has gone downhill fast. Our last visit (and I mean that literally!) our hostess was very nonchalant about incoming customers. The build bar was OK but the cook acted like he didn’t want to be there and cooked our food very half-​assed; doing everything EXCEPT mind the cook-​top. Our noodles were very under-​cooked but at least the other ingredients (meats, veggies) were good. It was so bad our server never returned to check on us save for the moment she refilled my Pepsi without my say-​so (after trying to tell her I didn’t want one). The entire staff was inattentive and seemed not to care about the customers. I sure hope this changes because it was once great and I’d hate to think this trend will continue.

So we’ve been here before, and over the years it went from being average to kind of crappy. The food is alright (I mean you practically make it yourself) but the staff kind of suck now. We walked in and the woman greeting customers, glanced at us with an utterly tired look of boredom, and we stood there awkwardly until she asked us if there were only two of us, in fairly broken english. There was no smile or happiness or welcome at people that were coming in to spend money at the establishment. It was as if she existed in some soul sucking pit of laziness and was struggling to find her way out.
We stand there still awkwardly waiting, until she hauls herself up with difficulty into a standing position and then sort of pretends to be choosing a table for us, until giving up and stopping. We got the message, promptly chose a table and then fought through establishing that we wanted 2 waters and a soda. I think that someone that needs to talk/​deal with customers also needs to be understood by said customers, on top of not looking like they’re just going to keel over from a boredom induced heart attack.
The food like I said, it was alright, although the sneeze guard glass looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for a long time. Lots of sneezes built up on it I guess.
The guy working the grill seemed to know what he was doing, didn’t burn our food, and all was temporarily well. Until we wanted to go up for twosies. We stood up and began to make our way to the food before then realizing that we had to deal with the lazy hostess again. We sat back down and twiddled our thumbs until she noticed that there might be something we wanted. Our empty plates were extremely prominent on the end of our table, and it was pretty clear that we wanted another pair of bowls. She finally asked us if something was wrong, at which point we asked for bowls and got more food.
I wouldn’t have had a problem with most of this had it been at all busy. It wasn’t. At all. There had been other patrons sitting in a table in front of us and they left about 15 minutes before us. The table wasn’t cleared before we left, and neither were our dirty dishes taken at any point while we were there. There were about 4 other tables and the hostess pretty much had nothing else to do. I don’t know what the story is behind her being in the restaurant, but she’s definitely not there to do her job.
Well, I lie. She worked plenty fast enough when it came to taking our money.
tl;dr We wanted to get easy cheap food in a timely manner, couldn’t because the hostess works at a snail’s pace if she moves at all.

I read the reviews and wasn’t sure if I wanted to go but that is where our grandson wanted to go and he got to pick. We really enjoyed it. The selection of foods was great, maybe hotdogs aren’t our choice but kids like it. The service was great. Very helpful and asking how we were doing. Loved the selection of sauces, they were no more «thin» then others we have been too. I would have given it a five star but reserve those for perfect places. We will be back.

I was skeptical of this place after reading the reviews but decided to go because I found myself without a car and it was within walking distance. I agree with what people said about the service. It was minimal at best. But the guy cooking the food was friendly. The soup was bland and the rice was mushy. However, the buffet was actually quite tasty! The meat was in tinier pieces that I would have liked. I got only the pork because it is less likely to be tough in this kind of buffet and it was really good. People in the reviews said that the sauce was thin but I just put a lot on and it was really flavorful. Lots of garlic and cilantro made it even better.

I like the food but the service sucks. Last time we came in (just two of us) I got no soup or rice and my bf wanted soup, we ended up with 4 soups and no water. The next time we came in no soup and she completely forgot to get my bf his next bowl to go up. I had to go up to her and remind her.

this is my favorite place in town…
The food is pretty good and the people are very friendly…

Lee’s was very meh. I think I’ve just been spoiled by Jungs. They had weird stuff… like hot dogs… If there was an award for «does not belong in here» They would win. On the up side there is NO LINE to cook your food.
They seem to avoid you when you want a second bowl… and the second bowl is smaller… I’m totally about pacing yourself and not wasting food… but if you’re going to advertise all you can eat choose one size bowl and let them eat all they can.
I know it wasn’t that big of a deal… I wouldn’t go back :/

I agree with ET. I have the same experience. the $ 10 off for the next visit.
Sauces were watered down.
Will not recommend this place.

The Good: Well, my dish had exactly the right proportion of stuff I wanted! Oh wait, I guess that’s because I chose a place where I knew I could make my own dish. They did have 4 different types of noodles which was good.
The Bad: Crepes are not included, just soup and rice. Also, something in the line smelled. off. Not sure what, might have been the bamboo shoots. Hopefully it was just my sense of smell, I will report back after my trip to the mens room…
The Ugly: Well, as is standard at pretty much every other Mongolian place I have been to, I expected that given only 1 price listed, it was as many as you wanted. I usually only half fill my bowls so I can do a variety of combinations. I was informed after my 2^nd bowl that the limit was 2 (They were gracious enough to allow me my 3^rd half-​filled bowl since it was my first offence)
Nowhere is this stated, and the server did not mention this to anyone at the table. When I mentioned that a simple sign would alleviate the confusion, I was told that nowhere did it say this was an all you can eat place. My wife pointed to the sign which stated no sharing etc that is standard at Mongolian places, and the hostess said «Of course not, this is a buffet» dot dot dot
The Rundown: Overall, not worth the trip. Same if not blander sauces and ingredients as Jung’s and others, courteous but oblivious staff. I too had to do a double take when I noticed that the Groupon offered was for 2 $ 10 gift cards, a sneaky way of forcing you to eat there at least twice. Well I totally gamed the system and tossed my extra $ 10 to the homeless guy on centennial. Maybe he will post a better experience than I did.

Food was pretty good, in the review below they had said the servers did not bring extra bowls.
After finishing our plates I put mine to the end of the table and the server asked if we would like another bowl and brought us one promptly.
The food was good, I do with they had sauce lists for good combo’s, as I do not know what tastes good on the food.
Noodle choices of: yakisoba, chinese, spicy and rice noodles.
Protein choices of: chicken pork beef tofu and sliced hot dogs.
Sliced hot dogs seemed very out of place!
Meal came with free rice and soup.
Soup was scalding hot and burnt my tongue initially.
Rice tasted like it was from the day before, good thing I did not go here for the rice, they would be better off not serving it.
all in all it was good, I will be going back again since I have bought two, ten dollar gift cards on groupon.
lunch until 3:30 mon-​fri = 9.95
lunch sat-​sun = 11.95
dinner = 11.95

We recently dined at Lee’s Mongolian Grill using a Groupon. Overall, we were pleased with our meal, but probably won’t be back unless we’re able to use another discount.
+ Meat & veggies were plentiful
+ Soup included with our dinner was flavorful
— Additional bowls were not brought to our table, we had to go to the counter to request one
— As mentioned in other reviews, it’d be nice if they provided simple recipes for the sauces
If you are a light eater and like leftovers, I highly recommend only going through once. If you only get one bowl, you can take whatever you don’t eat with you!

I went to the establishment because I got a Groupon. I wish I hadn’t. It was $ 20 worth for $ 10. I went with my husband and 2 kids, thinking I have to pay another $ 20 or so. (Dinner was $ 10.95 per person.) They only took $ 10 off of the total bill and told me I can use the rest for the next time. I wouldn’t have gone if I had known. There was no disclaimer for that on the coupon or anything. I think it is very dishonest on the restaurant’s part not to clearly state the deal.
Oh, the food… Well, it is a typical Mongolian Grill deal. They had 4 different kinds of noodles, limited selection of vegetables, and meat (beef, pork and chicken). They also had sliced HOT DOGS (!), tofu, shrimp and salmon. Seafood was not fresh tasting and meats were tough. Meal comes with soup and rice. Soup was awful.
Sauces were bland, everything was watered-​down, too thin.
The only the highlight was the waitress. She was very attentive and professional. She could get a job anywhere!
I think I will give away the remaining coupon to someone who doesn’t mind going by himself. I certainly will NOT go back and will not recommend this place.

I recently purchased one of those Groupon/​Groupigg type deals from Lee’s on a whim, because my wife and I absolutely love Jung’s Mongolian Grill. Plus, Lee’s is in Springfield near my wife’s business which would encourage me to surprise her with a lunch date.
I wish I had saved my $ 10 bucks.
Environment: The restaurant was clean, spacious, and attractively styled. I like what they did with the place. However, at lunch on Sunday, the place was empty. Which made it awkward.
Food: The food bar had typical Mongolian fair, typical sauces, etc. However, I found the sauces to be rather bland. Personal opinion of course. After having the food grilled, the resulting flavor was mediocre at best. I assume because of the sauces’ lack of flavor and substance.
Grillmaster: The dude behind the grill had the personality of a stoic Vulcan. I mean NO personality whatsoever. He also left half of the sauce in the bowl which was where the flavor I wanted was. Grrrr.
Server: Pleasant. No complaints.
Tried soomething new. Failed. Sticking with Jung’s.

Lee’s just opened for us folk not in Eugene. Very nicely decored this is still you standard Mongolian Grill. Same rules apply here as well, only what you can eat and no take home.
However, this is the first Mongolian Grill that I have been to that did not absolutely kill the meat. They acutally believe in the meat having juices still remain and yet somehow be cooked.
According to the owner who is also the chef — you can tell by his fancy red jacket, dinner service will include more unique items then what is already offered on the lunch menu. They also offer soup and rice with your meal. Being Mongolian, there is no excuse for the food not meeting your expectations as you were the one who decideds what goes in it, and how it will be flavored.
Oh and before I forget, this is the first place that also uses the sauce you put onto your food to actually cook with. Most times, it all gets dumped out onto the cooking surface and you watch half of your sauce slop over the side of the cooktop, and then after it starts to burn your asked if you want terriyaki sauce. Here, careful consideration of your meal is taken, and the sauce you have taken the time to create is incorporated throughout the cooking process. Oh yeah, they only give you the terriyaki if you ask for it, they don’t try to pawn it off onto you to cover the burned flavor!