Gangis Grill

I enjoy the science of cooking. Anyone who is familiar in the chemistry of a kitchen knows what I am talking about, the rush that comes with combining ingredients that you have never put together. Some kitchen scientists are meticulous and calculating. They take careful note of what they add to their concoction and in what amounts. Still there are others who spawn memories of the villainous mad scientist of our childhood cartoons. They grab ingredients seemingly at random and dashing unmeasured amounts into whatever they are brewing. A few stirs, a quick taste test, and they are running off across the kitchen for something else. It is in this mad, chaotic atmosphere that I learned to cook. My boyfriend taught me how to let go of my controlling and meticulous habits for the sake of good food. “The kitchen is a place that can’t be controlled. Some try to bring in structure, but things will still go wrong. Every dish is adventure and should be embraced as such. You have to be willing to grow with your dish, and let go of your recipe to do what is right for this particular preparation.” It is like having a Gandhi and Emerald in your head at once.

                  Mixing ingredients is far and away my favorite part of cooking. It is nestled in a sandwich of boring steps. The first of which is prepping. This step is usually the most tedious. It involves chopping and cutting, slicing and paring, and for what? Maybe I just feel lazy sometimes, but I always thought it would make more sense to figure out a way to sell things already prepped. Then after combining your ingredients comes the cooking stage. This is where you simmer, stir, or sauté for too long in anticipation of your meal. Throughout this process you have to check that the rice or pasta is softening, and that the meat is not drying out. It becomes overly tedious and heaven forbid that anything start to go wrong now.

                     This is why I like Gangis Grill, a new restaurant on Hwy 119 in Hoover. They allow me to not only enjoy the dish that I ordered by they allow me to combine the dish as well. This brings my two favorite parts of cooking together, building the dish and demolishing the dish, without the other steps in between. There restaurant centers on the practice of building your own “bowl.” To start, they bring a prep bowl and sauce cup to your table. Then you make your way to their pre-prepped assembly line of ingredients. Don’t worry, for those not as experienced or daring in the kitchen you can follow one of many “recipe” cards that tell you what ingredients to put together to make a certain dish. For the more adventurous, you may combine any number of ingredients in any amount on the ingredient bar if it will fit in or on your prep bowl.

                  First when going to the ingredient bar you come to the meats. These are uncooked, but pre-chopped and in tubes submerged in ice. They have selections from your standard white meat chicken breast, sliced beef, and chopped steak to turkey breast, shrimp, crab meat, tofu, and more. After you have selected your meat or combination of meat (I have had chicken and crab before. That was interesting.), you make your way to the spice section. Here sit somewhere between twelve to eighteen different spices. Some of these boast familiar names such as seasoned salt, red curry, yellow curry, and black pepper. Others have to be taste tested (for which they provide spoons), because I doubt anyone has a point of reference for spices called dragon salt. 

                  Next along your path you will find the vegetable additions. These are quite numerous and take up a healthy 3/5ths of the overall bar space. These options sprawl before you like a freshly prepped garden. I personally prefer to keep it simple with bean sprouts and mushrooms being an easy favorite, but others pill on vegetables until they have a mountain to balance atop their bowl. Anything you could want in a stir-fry and maybe a few things you don’t can be found here. There are staples such as onions, mushrooms, peppers, olives, and carrots. There are also more exotic options such as bamboo and cilantro. They have also added eggs at the end of this section for an additional protein option. This category definitely boasts the most variety at the bar.

                  The last, but arguably the best, section is the sauces. Here you are first going to want to taste test. Yes, there are spoons provided. There are twelve sauces ranging from regular soy sauce to salsa and marinara. They have curry sauces, soy, honey soy, island teriyaki, salsa, marinara, dragon something, and plenty more. I have tasted them all and settled on a combo of 50/50 honey soy and red curry. I know it does not sound right at first but by experimentation I have determined that it is delicious. And if you are one for extra sauce, there are extra sauce cups available for you to have as much as you want. (I recommend an additional cup for each additional starch).

                  Finally, you go to the counter and hand over your ingredient bowl and sauce cup(s). Here is where you tell the cook which starch you would like in your “bowl.” Each diner has six choices (I believe): sticky rice, fried rice, brown rice, udon noodles, pasta, or tortilla. Now the marinara and the salsa make since, right? These selections help cover the picky eaters in all of our lives. Once you choose you have the option of ordering double or triple servings of your starch! Please if you do, do not attempt to eat it all in one sitting. However, the plus side is you will definitely have leftovers, and I swear Gangis Grill gets better after a day in the fridge once the favors sink into the food better. It is the only place I have ever eaten where the leftovers can rival the original meal.

                  After you wait and ten minutes later you have a fully customized meal. I can’t see what it not to like about this restaurant.