I've been here several times throughout the years. I went in today to get takeout. Very friendly staff. So, this is a place where you pick all the raw foods you want in your dish, as well as all the sauces you want. YOU are the person who controls what you get. The food is cooked on a large, very hot grill. It takes less than 5 minutes after the cook gets it and it's done. The food area was clean and well stocked. I got my takeout meal with a large order of potstickers. All tasted great. I watched as an order was prepared for DoorDash. It looked really good. I may try that sometime in the future. Lot parking. Price for lunch is $13 plus tax. Get the app and use it for free food. It's all you want to eat when you dine in. I believe the dinner comes with soup or salad. MarcyDiner'sTantrumScale 5/5- NoScreamingKids. CyHawkApproved. read more

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HuHot A Family Fave Our kids go to college in Ames and they love HuHot Mongolian BBQ. It's quickly become a family favorite. Since it's a self-serv Mongolian BBQ you don't have to wait to order and you can customize your stir fry dish any way you like. Buffet items include various meats, fish, tofu, assorted veggies and various sauces and oils. Everything is then stir fried on a giant wok. It comes out hot and ready to eat in about 5 minutes. Best of all my twenty somethings and their "plus ones" can eat as much as they want, and I pay one low price. Yay! It's like Benihana but better: faster, cheaper and more casual. Perfect for what we want. read more

My wife and I decided to go to HuHot's Glad we did, the food was great, the waitress was very polite and the cook was spot on. Highly recommend this restaurant! read more

Perfect for those with allergies! Our large family includes people with peanut, tree nut, dairy, meat, and egg allergies. The staff went above and beyond to take care of us and our individual needs, even offering to get sauces and ingredients from the back to avoid cross-contamination on the buffet. They were so friendly and courteous! This is a staple in our restaurant rotation. 10/10 recommend! read more

Went in, restaurant wasn't busy, and when I sat back down at the table with my food I realized most of the crab was still cold. I informed a waitress who simply told me to go back up and she's let her manager know. When I returned to the grill area the cooks were complaining about how crab is precooked. When I said, out loud, "yeah but it's still cold," the cook who was bad mouthing a customer walked off without acknowledging me. The waitress never return to check on our table again and a manager never came over to apologize. Overall this experience put me off from ever eating at this chain again, and I've been going since I was a child. But the service and food quality has obviously slipped dangerously low and it is no longer safe to eat there. read more

This is not a review about the food but rather the management. Our daughter who is a college student at ISU was there with a friend and while in line...she accidentally dropped her bowl. Of course, she offered to clean it up but the person who attended her said that he would clean it up BUT the server would be adding another "all you can eat " fee for dropping her bowl. Which they did. I've never heard of a policy like this... read more

Im back and it's just as good as before. Best Mongolian grill around. The sauces are many choices and Ingredients also. read more

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The food is flavorless. No matter how many sauces and seasoning you add. It's like bad Chinese buffet. It's self-serve, except for the drinks. And ambiance? Surely you jest. read more

Food is good, atmosphere is good! Servers seemed a little stressed, they seem to have staff shortage issues, but our servers have always been good none the less. read more

Typically I'm a big fan of HuHot as I go often to the one in Bismarck, Sioux Falls and the dells! Is it mind blowing? No but it's consistently solid and service is typically strong! The location in Ames let me down in both service and food quality! Service was not friendly or social along with barely checking in with us! We had to wave three times to get any service! It was a slow night so I understand only have one person cooking but that one person should be able to cook your noodles and meat! My noodles were not cooked through or heated through I should say and my shrimp was also partially cooked! I don't think it was in the frill for more than 3 mins and typically it's longer! Not sure I'll go back to this location again but will continue to visit those I know are good! read more

For those who aren't aware, HuHot Monogolian Grill is an "all-you-can-eat" establishment with a build-your-own-bowl-of-noodles/stir fry type of set-up. When you get there, you'll be seated. You'll order any appetizers and tell the server what drink you'd like (They have Coke Freestyle machines here with hundreds of choices). You'll get get up and pick up an empty bowl. You'll first fill that bowl with any meats you'd like. Then choose what noodles you'd like. Then put on the veggies on top. Finally, you put 5-6 scoops (I usually do 2 to cut down on sodium) of your choice of sauces on top. You then bring your bowl to a large, circle-grill. They'll take your food and put it on the grill. You then stand and wait until your food is cooked and they hand it back to you on a plate. You then sit and eat. And repeat this process as many times as you want. As an update to my initial review (which basically said that they were good but still had untrained staff), HuHot has gotten a lot better. Service has been pretty good every time I've gone recently. Drinks are refilled every time I go up to get a plate while I haven't had any issues with burned food (like I do 50% of the time at the Cedar Falls HuHot). For the complaints of the other reviews, don't come to HuHot if you're expecting the best stir fry you've ever eaten. That's really not it's niche. It's niche is "All you can eat stir-fry made right before your eyes with ingredients you picked out". Hated your creation? Go up and make another one. Still hungry? Get another plate - as many as you want, really. Does this get expensive? Yeah. I don't usually go to HuHot for dinner as their dinner price is more than I want to pay, but for a lunch at $9.99, the unlimited food is very much reasonable. And delicious. I don't come here expecting 5-star, fresh meats - because it isn't. But it does allow me to pick exactly what I want, with the exact portions I want, and then eat it. And repeat the process as much as I'd want. My biggest complaint now is that they've gone and added a *lot* of veggie and topping options. This is okay, but it means that some of the toppings got "halved". For example, you used to be able to reach the onions from both sides of the topping bar. Now you have to awkwardly try to reach across a table to get the ladle to grip up some onions into your bowl while trying not to spill everything everywhere. There's no easy way to switch sides of the tables once you're in the topping line either. This does mean more toppings for people who like obscure toppings, but it also means some annoyance for the more-popular toppings. I even watched a manager hop onto the grill when the sole grill employee was looking a bit stressed out. Just wanted to update my review to say that their employee issues have been ironed out, and they're doing pretty well. read more

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I love huhot and this one's the worst. They don't properly cook your food all the way leaving you with soup and lousily cooked food.

If you add the right spices it is great. Clean fast good service. I like to mix pork and beef

$10 for lunch? All you can eat? Definitely one of the best deals I've seen. The process to make your own plate is very simple. Grab a bowl and fill it with whatever you want. Just make sure to get at least 5 scoops of sauce. Personally. I'd add a bit of oil to make sure the noodles don't stick together. Only downfalls would be that on the website it said there would be scallop but I didn't see them. No biggie for me since I really wanted the pork instead. So I assume not all items listed on the website are going to be present. The other downfall is the sauce station. It's a little confusing since there's only 3 signs but 4 rows. But some of the sauces were distinguishable from the others so it wasn't too bad. Calorie counters! They lost all the calories for the oz of their items. Great! But I didn't see a scale around to measure. Lol. read more

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I went here with pretty high expectations as I had heard some good things about it from a lot of my friends. This is a buffet style restaurant and so you can get as much food as you want. It is a sort of fun to get to pick all of the different food items that you want as well as the sauces and then get to watch it be cooked but besides that I don't have great things to say. The meat is all very low quality frozen meat that does not taste great and the meat is the main focus of the meal for me. I left pretty dissatisfied with the overall food experience but I guess could also just blame myself as I was the one that made it! read more

It is a great place to visit every once in a while. You can make your noodles however you want. They provide a few recipes to start with, but you can choose to build your own. All the sauces are pretty good. Hope you enjoy your visit. read more

A tad surprised this chain came to Ames, but I'm happy it's here. I hope they don't stomp out local business Mongolian Buffet. They serve a few items, but the main "thing" is the buffet. Choose your noodles, vegetables, meat, sauces, and there's a large grill where staff grills it up for you. If you're gluten intolerant or have major allergies - no problem! Great for picky eaters and those with allergies. They'll clean the grill and keep your food separate from others while they cook it. My biggest reason for digging this place is the general manager - this man works harder than anyone I've ever seen and is super supportive of the cooks and waiters. Great experience my first time ever at a HuHot, and I'll definitely return. Heard of the chain, glad it lived up to the hype. read more

Food was great the only thing I seen wrong is the air conditioning vents are way to dirty. Lots of dirt and bacteria floating in the air from that. But the food was great and tasty and fresh .so kudos for being fresh otherwise. Thanks for the refreshing tea also . read more

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I enjoy HuHot. Most places don't make anything hot enough, so it's nice to have control. But this one in particular, I worry about the cleanliness. We've been there twice recently, and both times we've had to ask them to actually clean the table. Both times it's been not only sticky, but it honestly looked like it hadn't been wiped at all. Not to mention the floors are always sticky. Everything is sticky, honestly, but that's the nature of a big open grill and self-serve sauces. But the tables not being wiped down is a huge concern. That just makes you wonder what else they're not cleaning as frequently as they should be. read more

Good food, polite staff, not sure about the cleanliness though. When going by the food bar to pick my ingredients there was some raw thawed I think beef on the bar, not with the rest of the meat but on the bar outside of the container and there was beef in the floor alongside a rather sticky liquid which got stuck to my shoe. So overall I would recommend but I can't really vouch for the cleanliness. read more

We have been here a couple of times. Mid afternoon was a good time to go, very few people. The food is fresh, but we had to ask the waiter for drink refills and more rice. We also had to ask for the bill. The waiter needs to be more attentive. read more

I havent gone to huhot in years, so when I visited ames i was excited to have it again. They exceeded my expectations, with helpful staff, great atmosphere, and my dishes were very tasty. Id recommend getting multiple scoops of sauce since one or two will mostly evaporate. Try experimenting with different ingredients and you'll find a dish you will love. Thanks for the great experience! read more

Wish these were in JAX! So sad the mom and pop mogolian bbq shut down in jax beach. Someone PLEASE open one of these franchises!

Service was awesome the waiter was a hoot and an all around great guy. He goes to iowa state and is majoring in chemistry what a stud. The food was mid tier they didn't tell me how to do it so not cool dude. Not COOL. Server was an absolute king and should be protected at all cost. read more

This is a few weeks in now from when it opened, and the learning curve for employees seems to have been taken care of. This Hu Hot is like all others I've been to, with service on par with what I have come to expect. The food is better here than the other Mongolian bar style buffet in Ames, and I am glad it is here. Just Park in the back, else you play parking spot roulette. read more

Normally, I love me some Hu Hot, but this place is the exception to the rule. It was not very clean, the space was small and tucked into a small strip mall. The wait staff was not the fun usual friendly staff. Unless you really need that Hu Hot, how hot? Fix, then I would avoid this spot. read more

Food was good enough, as usual. However, they have apparently developed a new practice that is, in my opinion, a little unethical. When you pay for your bill, in cash, the wait staff (perhaps only ours, so I don't want to lump all of the staff together) does NOT return the left over change from your payment. For example, a bill is $11.70, paid $20.00, wait staff returns $8.00, not the $8.30 they should be returning...and then they disappear so they cannot be asked about this. Do that all day, and you've got a tidy little extra amount of tips for the day. Not likely to return if this practice continues...or, pay only with a credit card to prevent them from 'keeping the change'. read more

It is at best ok. Frozen meats. No eggs. And the rice is either day old. Or they have no idea on how to make rice. Either is a bad sign. 18$ for frozen meat and oily potstickers. read more

Food was good as always. Unfortunately They must not be aware of Covid. To make it easier on their crew for cleaning they had every seat on one side of the restaurant taken and the other side closed off. Would have felt much better spread out and not sitting on top of each other. Pretty sad they are that lazy. read more

This is the best Asian noodle in the town! You can use your creativity to mix anything you like! But pretty expensive... read more

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This place is very similar to a Mongolian Wok in the burbs of Chicago. And how can you not love the name, WHO HOT? I just love saying it!!! When you walk in, you are seated and then the server brings you a menu. They do have a one price, all you can eat dinner bowl for $14.29 per person, which is what all three of us ordered. I probably spent more time perusing their Free Style Coke menu than I actually did the dinner menu, so I cannot say much more about that. Went with Barq's RootBeer vanilla, which I had never had, if you are curious... It is pretty good mixed with Coke, as Coke did something similar for one of their holiday flavors last year. We were able to get complimentary white rice, but I was a little surprised they only brought out one bowl. It was fine, as hubby/son added noodles to their bowl when up at the serving station. When you grab your bowl and walk down the serving line, you start out with your meat, your noodles, veggies and then sauces. You can add as much or as little as you like, as long as you can keep it from spilling out of your bowl . I saw some guys that managed to build a small tower in their bowl. I always wonder how they manage that. But considering I can't eat that much and I wasn't sure they'd give me a carry-out box anyway, I figured it didn't matter. The meats were plentiful and they were little slivers of frozen meat. They had a good amount of veggies. My favorite part was that they had their own sauce combinations created and you could choose them instead of trying to create your own. HOWEVER, pay attention to the heat rating. I saw one I liked, scooped it onto my food and then realized it was a spicy one. Since I hadn't gotten past that section, I ended up scooping out the top pieces of food that were where the sauce mainly landed and just throwing them out and refilling my bowl. Be warned! I am not sure how many scoops of sauce they recommend, but I think about 7 would have been perfect. Mine was a little dry, but not too bad and I lost count after my spicy sauce saga. Hubby used about 5 scoops of different things and said his was too dry. Our son told us after the fact to use 7. Thanks kid, you could have said something earlier.... Then you wait in line, as the chefs cook it on a huge circular grill. They make it look easy, but at the same time like a honed craft. I am sure if I tried cooking my own, veggies would have been flying in the air. I saw some complaints about burnt food, but we had none of those issues. As far as the taste of the food, other than the cooking part, if you don't like your food, you only have yourself to blame, as you created it!! So, good luck. The server was great and kept the refills coming, plus regularly checked on us to see if we needed anything else. Definitely one of my favorite restaurants that we have eaten at in Ames. read more

I love Huhot and it's usually our go to place for food in Ames in my family. My waitress was great today, but eating at Huhot gave me a lot of anxiety today. My complaint is that today the machine was down and we weren't told until after we sat down with our meals. As for payment, some people had meals comped (those that pitched fits and argued for it, thanks) and some did not. I don't agree with taking our credit card information on paper and will be watching my banking info closely, but felt powerless to argue as I already had my food by the time I was told. read more

Yummy yummy yummy!! My niece and nephew took me here for lunch/dinner. You can't help but eat enough to tide over you for the whole day. We walk in and were greeted by very friendly people very clean area delicious fresh food can't wait to go back great experience thank you read more

A very popular place in a college town for a reason! The place is casual dress but nice and quite busy. The food is good and unlimited. That being said, understand that it you have to wait in line while your food is being made, and that can take awhile, so the older generations might not like it. Also, do NOT go if you have a severe allergy to something like shrimp because the grill that they cook it on is not sectioned off so sometimes your food will touch others being cooked next to you. read more

We went to the HuHot in ames and we had the best server, Scott. He was cracking jokes from the start, best sever i've had by far! and not only the service but the food was great too, 10/10 would recommend read more

Friendly service. Excellent food and sauces for any pallet. Must try this place if you haven't already done so.

It's so good would recommend. All you could eat stir fry noodles. There are a lots of choices & you can mix different sauces for different flavors. Super friendly staff and clean restaurant. read more

I ordered Togo and the service was decent. I'm from Texas so it was my first time here. The food was okay but not worth the price. It could've been better. read more

High price and poor quality. Sliced frozen chicken and steak tastes awful when cooked. Not impressed at all.