Culinary delights in Ulaanbaatar

One of my favorite things to do is eat. I love the experience of tasting new and favorite foods, and enjoying a meal with good company. Knowing relatively little about Mongolia before touching down in the country, one of my biggest curiosities/concerns about living here was what kinds of options there would be in the way of food and restaurants. 

Mongolia is landlocked, and a traditionally nomadic herding culture, so I imagined that most of my meals would be heavy in meat and exceedingly light on vegetables. Tour guides don't do much to dispel this suspicion - for the most part, they went on at length about the popularity of mutton, not to mention fermented mare's milk.

To my surprise, at least in the urban area that is Ulaanbaatar, this couldn't be further from the truth. My first culinary experience in Mongolia was at Modern Nomads, at a welcome dinner thrown my Houston, the friend and mentor who got me involved with this spectacular opportunity a few months back. Modern Nomads is known for serving traditional Mongolian dishes - picture heaps (literally, heaps) of meat piled on a plate of noodles, with a few slices of vegetables mixed in. I went the traditional route during our dinner, and ordered tsaivan (sp?), which are fried noodles, with a sizable amount of beef and some thinly sliced red peppers stirred in.

Salad at Veranda

Last weekend, which was my first weekend in UB, I tried out Veranda for a solo "decompression" dinner. Veranda is an Italian restaurant, situated on top of a Chinese restaurant. As the Lonely Planet travel guide describes, you sit on couches rather than chairs (which, for the most part are uncomfortable pretty much anywhere you go here). I ordered a green salad and beef tortelloni soup, both of which were delicious! The tomatoes tasted like NJ tomatoes in summer, and there was white asparagus (all veggies from China, I suspect). 

Green tea at Veranda

Millie's has already become a regular spot for me, and is apparently an expat staple. It's right behind the Oyu Tolgoi offices and has floods of people for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So far I've had huevos rancheros for breakfast (in an awesome tortilla!), chicken salad (which is more like curry chicken slides with apple slices and walnuts on top of lettuce, and delicious chocolate cake.

Dinner at Buffalo (pre-cooking)

Last week I met a Peace Corps volunteer (friend of a friend of a friend) at a place called Buffalo, which is a Korean BBQ-style place, where waitors cook your meat on a grill in the center of your table. Guess what we ordered? Correct - beef....and some zucchini in sweet/sour sauce, tempura veggetables and rice. 

So, overall, you can see that my meals have been pretty varied! In UB, there's everything from Mongolian to Italian to Cantonese to Thai to Korean to American. So far, so good...my only problem is eating too much because things taste good!