"When most people think about kabobs, think about Mediterranean diversity. Or maybe the bamboo kewers that use Thais, Indonesians and Filipinos for their grill. When I received the invitation to the Chinese style of Kabobs from my Pleasure Palate group, my curiosity was piqued. Feng Mao Mutton Kebab is located in Koreatown and offers a somewhat different way to take kabob cuisine. Just a few blocks away from the popular Manna, Feng Mao branch sign stuck in the street corner it occupied. It is easy to suspect that his other Korean BBQ restaurant because you cook your own food, but the kitchen is a dead giveaway that this is not Korean food. The far western part of China is mostly desert, and its food has a Middle Eastern influence on it with the heavy use of lamb. They also like their food on the spicy side. Donna took pictures of the menu and the food and published it as a reference. The “ban chan” like appetizers are interesting. They consisted of pickled cucumbers, Kimchi and cooked peanuts. The peanuts were served cold. I guess the Kimchi was there as a reference for all her clients of Korean descent. From the 3 appetizers, my group liked the best peanuts. They also give you a bowl with all the uncut gloves of garlic. They told us to be sawed and cooked. My table was not really disturbed – we thought it was still too much work to peel the garlic after it. Our group ordered beef, lamb, chicken and mushrooms for our dinner. They give you bowl filled with seeds, herbs and spices. It looks almost like paprika mixed with several other herbs. They basically plant the meat before and/or after cooking. The content of the spice bowl has an almost crimson hue to it, but its surprisingly mild in relation to hot chili factor. My group was very liberal in applying spices to meat. We could hardly taste the difference between beef and lambcaps. My group has probably overtaken our first round of kabobs because we had to get used to cooking with our barbecue. If I had to choose between the two, I preferred the beef a little more. The chicken came in two types of cuts: wings and cubes. The wings were really much work to prepare and eat. It does not lend itself to kabob style cooking, especially as you treat with the bones. The chicken cubes were much easier to prepare, but I didn't feel like they were comparing with the beef. If there was any meat I enjoyed most, there was no meat at all – I loved the soungi mushrooms. They are like huge Portabella mushrooms, but I liked their taste better and they keep better when they are grilled. They were also much cheaper than the meat dishes we ordered. In addition to the kabobs we ordered 2 pasta dishes: a spicy noodle dish and a cold noodle dish. The spicy noodle dish packs heat. Its deceptive first because its so full taste, but after a while the heat from the chili enters and your lips begin to burn. It's a shame, because if it wasn't that spicy, I would have eaten more from the court. The cold noodle dish had slices of beef, a hard boiled egg and glass noodles. I didn't like this court. I just can't eat cold noodles, especially cold glass noodles. I think I would have liked this dish better if it were served warm like Sukiyaki. I think one of the things I really don't like in this place was that they used real charcoal for the grill. One of the people in my group cried for the smoke that was not detected by the ventilation. They even opened the main door to ventilate the place better after most table stands were filled with cartridges. This place seems to be popular with locals. When I came home, I realized that my clothes smelled like smoke and I had to ventilate my jacket and wool sweater for at least 2 days to get rid of the dying BBQ smell. The total damage came by $25 per person for my table of 4. I thought it was a little expensive. If I ever came back, I would only order the beef and mushroom cabbage and ask for the spicy noodle dish, but tinted with the heat level down so that it does not burn my lips. The service is friendly. There are only street parking spaces that are not a problem because its only restaurant in the block is located."
