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Anujin RestaurantAnyway, since the glorious summer in Mongolia is over, every single "autumn leaf of red and gold" (actually, we only have yellow ones here) has fallen off the trees, there's a nip in the air, and we are back on the aromatic trail of food. Doug has already posted a "check on the Old Czech". Here follows another one, as we open our fall-winter season, along with the opera, ballet and symphony. We hope our reports will continue to lead you to "symphhonies for your palette" while you are in UB. NAME: Anujin TYPE: Chinese (eclectic). We have to say we invited two other people to join us for this Obscure Restaurant review. This is not our usual style but, for Chinese restaurants, it's always good to have more than two people in order to order more than two dishes in order to sample more of the cuisine. After all, that's our mandate for these reports. LOCATION: Geographically, this is by no means an obscure restaurant. It is right on the main drag east of town and cheek by jowl with the British embassy. To make it more difficult for you to find it, however, we won't tell you which cheek or jowl it's by. But for western expats, we think this qualifies as "obscure" because in the many times we have been there, we have rarely seen westerners. (See attendance, below). HOURS: Lunch and dinner. They may have breakfast also since this restaurant is in the hotel by the same name. It would be interesting to see if they have Chinese breakfasts. APPEARANCE AND AMBIANCE: A brightly-lit, sparkling clean, well-appointed restaurant with both round Chinese-style dining tables with lazy susans (or should it be "lazy oyunas") and regular rectangular tables. Several private rooms for special occasions and some nooks and crannies. Very pleasant and not noisy even when full. Seats perhaps 50 people. ATTENDANCE: Between the two of us, we have probably been to this restaurant ten times by now. Two things stand out: first, it is almost always full of diners, most of whom are either Mongolians or Chinese and, second, there are rarely western expats there. That's why we call this "obscure", since our reports are primarily aimed at getting western expats out to explore new places, beyond the few "old faithfuls". Being right by one of the cheeks and jowls of the British embassy, it is amazing to us that the Anujin restaurant has not become the destination of choice for dinner after TGIF at the Steppe Inne at the British embassy. This may be because the restaurant has only been open for a few months and the hotel in which it is located (by the same name) has recently been renovated and is under new management by a Mongolian citizen of Inner Mongolian origin, we were told. STAFF: All Mongols, none of whom speaks Chinese, except for the cook who IS Chinese. (See Food below). But the waiters and waitresses are young and nicely dressed in snappy uniforms and are friendly and accomodating. SERVICE: Friendly, fast and attentive. Some delays may occur when the single Chinese chef is preparing food for 50 people. MENU: An incredible array of Chinese dishes. Although this is a Chinese restaurant, the menus are only in Mongolian and English, not a single character of the Chinese language. But each of the 100+ items on the menu is numbered and, after a few meals there, you will begin to learn the numbers of your own favorite dishes which should expedite ordering. FOOD: This section is actually a composite of several outings to the Anujin. Great starters are: spicy cashew nuts, beef in black bean sauce, sea salad with cucumbers or onions (ie, jelly fish), and century eggs (they look rotten but they are delicious, and not rotten, just cured). Then move on to lightly fried chicken with lemon sauce, tofu with green peppers or chili (both spicy), fried pork with green peppers, barbecued beef, sauteed chicken and peanuts, fried rice with vegetables, or whole steamed fish with leeks. The fish is Lenok, a native fresh water trout which is suberb (the cheeks are the real delicacy). But the incredible thing is that one cook from Nanjing, Mr Jang, almost never misses on the dishes he prepares, and he can be cooking for 50 people at once and all of them are in different stages of their dinners. Of course, he has a number of apprentice chefs learning how to do all the chopping and other preparations prior to the cooking itself in two huge woks with flames coming out around the edges. The kitchen is an inferno, but what comes out of it is heaven on a plate. HYGIENE: Impeccable FACILITIES AND AMENITIES: There is a bar and a night club at the far end of the hotel. Looks cozy and interestingly decorated, but we didn't stay because we were already sated. The restrooms are crammed in under the stairs in the hotel's vestibule. They are passable but a bit difficult for tall people to use due to the sloping stair case which forms the ceiling. COST: About US$6.00 per person including tea and beer. An incredible bargain RECOMMENDATION: We think this is certainly the best Chinese restaurant in UB and will go further out on the limb to say that it may be the top overall restaurant in UB in any culinary tradition. RATING: Our top rating in this series of reports is 5. As we have said before, we will probably never give a "5" because we salivate for better establishments to open in the future. We give the Anujin 4.7 out of 5, the highest rating for any of our Obscure Restaurant surveys so far.
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