Restaurant: King Tan Location: Sveavägen 47 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: (08) 34 47 85 Price Range: 119:- SEK

Number of visits: 1
Last visit before review: August 3, 2001

We both had: Mongolian Barbecue + Asian Buffet + Fruit (described in the narrative), hot green tea.

Rating 6 (of 12) Average

Randy says: The Asian Buffet was a collection of mediocre steam tray items that had been sitting out for who-knows-how-long, most of which would have been difficult to identify without the handwritten labels (in Swedish). While the curry chicken was yellow, it was greasy and without flavor. One dish (we couldn't decipher the Swedish to know what it was) contained beef and veggies and was very spicy. It was probably the best of the pathetic lot. Peking soup, which was hot and sour soup, was sweet and thickened, packed with cornstarch and little bits of pork. The chicken soup was a thin, white, greasy, nasty liquid.

Jeff says: There was a beef and bamboo that wasn't bad. That other mystery beef dish was too spicy for me. The Peking soup really wasn't all that bad. The chicken soup, which was thin and milk-based, was startling at first but I think it grows on you and I had a few more spoons full. I didn't want to eat too much of it due to the extreme milkiness.

Randy says: The Mongolian barbecue had a wide assortment of meat and seafood. The entrecôte and the lamb were a bit fatty. The salmon was surprisingly good. There was also pork, beef, oysters, and shrimp that I skipped (the beef was wilted but a fresh batch was later put out). There were carrots, green and red bell peppers, canned mushrooms, canned baby corn, bean sprouts, and scallions. While I liked the variety of the vegetables I was very disappointed that few of them were fresh. There was an interesting variety of sauces to apply before cooking including soy sauce, oyster sauce, some kind of vinegar, and barbecue sauce (an oily-tomatoey concoction). Instead of being cooked on the traditional round grill, it was done on a standard kitchen grill against a wall which the chef used to scoop the food up against.

Jeff says: I wasn't sure what all the meats were so I stuck to the ones I knew which were entrecôte, beef, and lamb, but the lamb was so fatty I skipped it. I managed to get some of the fresh beef when it was put out. There were no bread pockets that one gets with Mongolian barbecue in the U.S. The veggies weren't bad, and the mushrooms came out nice and flavorful. The barbecue oil added just the right seasoning.

Randy says: On the fruit buffet there was freshed sliced melon, whole peaches, apples, canned pineapple, Mandarin oranges, and fruit cocktail. The melon was ripe and flavorful. I managed to pick two unripe peaches. I sampled Jeff's peach when I chopped it up for him and he got a ripe one.

Jeff says: The peaches were really nectarines and mine was good. I was happy to share. There were also green and purple grapes. I had a few branches of the purple ones and they were good.

Randy says: The tea was good quality loose leaf green tea served in a nice teapot, but no method was provided to arrest steeping.

Jeff says: The tea was fine.

We ended up at King Tan because we and our friend decided to go to a different Mongolian barbecue restaurant for dinner, but when we got there it was closed. We had passed King Tan after getting off the subway, so we went back to check it out. We were hungry and it was open.

The inside is large, as are the buffet tables. There is certainly a lot of variety. Unfortunately, it got so smokey inside that we were unable to hang around longer than it took to finish our mediocre meals.