Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, National University of Mongolia
On the day I arrived, my hostess and her supervisor at the department took me to a Mongolian barbecue restaurant, the Altai Mongolian Barbecue.
The signs were a little misleading. Both outside and inside (shown o the steps above), they indicated (or so I thought), and the restaurant had been in business since 1206. I thought (1) that it was the oldest restaurant I had ever been in, and (2) that it looked in really good shape for such an old place. When I noted these things to my hosts, they just laughed, and said that "Original Mongolian Grill" clearly referred to the Mongolian style of cooking rather than to the specific restaurant. We then proceeded to have a short English lesson ...
The restaurant was bright and open inside. Pretty good for 1206, eh?
Here you get history along with food.
One interesting difference between true Mongolian grills and American versions
is that Mongolian grill-masters really know how to keep track of the food they
are cooking on that big grill. At one point, I counted 12 separate orders being
grilled by one guy. Somehow, he managed everything.