Pergola

Upon walking into Pergola and about ready to eat my own arm, I figured I’d try something new, so I headed for the Mongolian grill. In general, I don’t like to create my own anything. I don’t trust myself with stuff like that, and also, if I mess up, I only have myself to blame, which is just salt in the wound when I don’t enjoy my lunch. It’s very complicated.
ANYWAY, I grabbed a big wooden bowl and filled it with peppers, udon noodles, bean sprouts, spinach, steak pieces, mushrooms, broccoli, teriyaki sauce, BBQ sauce, and red pepper flakes, and hesitantly gave it to the guy. He grilled it up and I had my lunch in less than 2 minutes. It didn’t look like it was going to fill me up and it was too late to add to it, so I grabbed a plastic container of mixed fruit as well. The stir fry cost $ 7.77 and the fruit $ 4.40. So while I enjoyed what I created under overwhelming timed pressure, it didn’t fill me up and it was overpriced. I think it’d be worth it if you include more meat and less noodles. I’ll be back, though, as it’s a unique lunch near my office and I think I am getting better at facing the whole create-​your-​own-​lunch thing.

Good hookah. Good good good music. The spot closes at 2 am. That kinda sucks overall good service. I will be coming back

This review is mainly for their breakfast hours.
If you decide to go for the breakfast sandwiches, be ready to face the most pissed off guy behind a skillet. He gives you looks, yells, and rushes everyone to get their order and get out. sometimes he just plain ignores one person whose clearly next on line and asks another person for their order instead. There were a couple of times I found egg shells in my food as well. Listen buddy, I understand if you hate your job but don’t take it out on the customers. There’s plenty of other places in the area that serves the same thing without the attitude.
Instead of breakfast sandwiches, they have a very small station for oatmeal, fruit salad and yogurt. It’s my favorite part of the place because it’s Do it Yourself. Very straight forward get what you need — I don’t want to talk to anyone before my morning coffee, pay the people at the cashier, in and out.
Lunch wise: their Mongolian BBQ is kind of expensive. wasn’t worth it. They also got a C health rating for a couple months now. Not worth coming here, there’s plenty of other breakfast options in midtown
updated: health rating went up to a B

Free can of soda is back, as well is my 3 star rating. Decent food, and a sangwich and a can of cola gets you out of there for well under $ 10.

I like that there are many choices for fresh food in one location, though nothing about the food is extraordinary, especially for the prices, which seem high even for Midtown NYC.
While in NYC for a 3 week work event at the conference center next door, I ate here nearly daily (Even deli meat from some of the best delis in the world gets old after a few days). I had soup, I had salad, I had a sandwich (I like them in a box, I like them with a fox… Is it just me, or is the list a little Seussical?) but the best choice is the Mongolian Grill. Throw fresh veggies and your choice of many meats into a bowl, add sauce and take to the grill to be prepared. Deliciousness in 10 minutes or less! The black and white cookies are also tasty.

This is just a review of their breakfast.
Pretty much your typical NYC breakfast place. A bit quiet in the morning which is nice, but their cashier can be a little slow. They make huge sandwiches compared to the Europas and PAX-​es but sometimes you have to clarify things with the cooks.

This place is super inconsistent!
Every time I go it’s a new price for the same item… sometimes the price actually on the menu and sometimes 2 dollars more and argue that you added this or that (when mind you I order the same thing every time). Food tastes burnt most of the time from grill.
The staff is also some of the rudest a**holes I have ever come in contact with. YOU WORK IN THE SERVICE INDUSTRY… at least smile instead of looking like someone put a gun to your head to work.

Health Grade: A (This place has had a C for the past year… but I’m glad it managed to bring that up to an A)
I love mongolian grill and I’m so glad that there is something near where I work. We come here quite often and basically you get to choose what vegetables/​meat/​noodles and how much of it you want and they just cook it all for you. You also get to pick your own toppings, and then you pay based on the weight. It’s amazing.

Very expensive Mongolian. Was it good? It was okay, I guess. Was it worth $ 46 for two people to have a plate of food? No.
Heed the warnings of the other reviews. The food was fresh with decent variety, buffet style bowls of vegetables and meats– but there wasn’t really anything special about it.
I guess the novelty of it is worth something, but the price is out of control for food you put in a bowl yourself and then eat in a café upstairs. Lame.

I go here cause it’s close.
They like to change the prices and not change the signs, so you get a nice surprise when you go to pay.
They still have a C rating for awhile now which concerns me, usually that gets rectified after a bar or restaurant makes necessary corrections.
The guys making your sandwiches are miserable unless you can speak Spanish .
The lady at the counter Marie I think her name is, she’s very nice.
I do like the unlimited toppings on the oatmeal and the Mongolian BBQ.

I love this place. The sushi is always fresh and delicious and they make the best sandwiches. The staff is very fast, efficient, and friendly. I also love that there is a large sitting area upstairs.

Ok, so you have a C rating from the NY Dept of Mental Health and Hygiene, yet your prices keep going up? Really don’t understand it. I’ve been a customer for a long time because it’s right across the street from my office. I stopped going there for lunch because of the rating, but continued going their for my oatmeal and iced coffee (taking that risk) for breakfast. However, recently prices have gone up AGAIN. Girls at the cash registers are GREAT, but the manager is delusional. Starbucks, here I come…

THEY COVER UP THEIR C RATING SIGN WITH A SIGN STAND!
Keep eating there, you and all the rats, roaches and mice together shall feast.
Gross.
Violations recorded in the following area (s) and a Notice of Violation issued at the reinspection conducted on 03/​28/​2013.
«Critical» violations are displayed in red.
Violation points: 42
Sanitary Violations
1) Cold food item held above 41º F (smoked fish and reduced oxygen packaged foods above 38 ºF) except during necessary preparation.
2) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/​or non-​food areas.
3) Facility not vermin proof. Harborage or conditions conducive to attracting vermin to the premises and/​or allowing vermin to exist.
4) Non-​food contact surface improperly constructed. Unacceptable material used. Non-​food contact surface or equipment improperly maintained and/​or not properly sealed, raised, spaced or movable to allow accessibility for cleaning on all sides, above and underneath the unit.

Like many reviewers before me have said, the Mongolian BBQ is what I came for. At first, I was a little disoriented.
There’s no signage to explain how it should be done, or what to do after you’ve got your bowl ready. I wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes while I watched others fill their own bowls.
The selection of ingredients was decent, nothing special. I really had a craving for noodles, so I went with a hefty portion. Add in some chicken, some peppers, and a few spoonfuls of teriyaki.
It went onto the grill, and when it came off, the container was insanely hot. I took mine to go and the guy put it in the plastic bag — the entire way back to my office, I was worried it would melt through the plastic bag.
Overall, mine came to $ 11, which is more than I typically like to spend for lunch. It’s incredibly difficult to gauge just how much you are putting into the bowl. I would go back again, but I would be more careful about my selections.

I love the sandwiches at Pergola. Two of my favs include: (1) chicken salad, honey mustard, bacon, cheese, lettuce and tomato on a wrap, and (2) turkey, watercress, brie, apple, tomato on a roll. They have interesting combos and each sandwich comes with a free can of soda.
Their salad bar is good too. I can put whatever I want in it, and it generally comes out to less than what I’d pay at Chopt for the same thing, if not more.
My coworkers also are fans of their mongolian bbq grill, which seems to have lots of fresh ingredients (go easy on the noodles though, because they it’s by weight, and they are very heavy).
I probably frequent this place multiple times a week and haven’t gotten sick of it yet. I’m a fan.

In California, they had these «Mongolian BBQ» stands in the mall, and it was right up there on my growing lists of delayed discoveries when I left the East Coast to go to school out there. Becoming conscious of Mongolian BBQ was second only to The Discovery of Phở, which I only found out about senior year in college when I befriended some friends of culture.
Anyway, that shiny, mythically huge round griddle, that endless bar of ingredients, and those sticks that keep everyone’s dishes apart (but not really, because everyone’s meal components get swiped all around the same surface, so vegetarians, don’t kid yourselves — that yummy taste is beef/​pork/​lamb/​chicken juice baby!)…well, I relegated all these features as memories and yearnings for the good life on the West Coast.
Ah, but I should have assumed that whatever California has in the way of food, NYC also has (except for viable Mexican food, maybe). And so it is with Mongolian BBQ.
It is just the icing on the cake that Pergola exists in the culinary wasteland surrounding Bryant Park and sprawling on into Times Square. Stepping in here is like stepping into a less crowded two story Korea Town establishment (with prepared foods, snacks, drinks, salad bars, and the barbeque on the bottom floor and seating on the top)…but the FOOD is like teleporting back to some strip mall in Anytown, California.
Same chewy yellow noodles, fat white noodles, fresh looking spinach (cooks way down, so pile it up!), regular and portabella mushrooms, and what all else. Only difference is that Pergola only has beef and pork. There was a section boasting shrimp and squid, which would have totally made up for the lack of lamb and chicken, except they just didn’t have it. Next time, baby. Next time.
Best of all was the pre-​minced garlic with a ladle stuck in it so I could pretty much empty the whole thing into my big bowl. Oh yeah, that’s another difference from the Mongolian BBQs in the food courts of the West Coast; they go by weight, and not by what you can jam in a bowl. In some ways, this sucks, but in other ways, it’s awesome because they give you a huge ass bowl and you can have the freedom to create instead of knuckling down frozen rolls of meat and crushing your veggies to get it all in.
The cooks dump your bowls and keep them, then neatly scoop your stuff into an aluminum container that can easily be weighed. Mine rang in at a little over $ 11. As I said, spinach is the way to go…
Additional tips are to remember to add oyster sauce in addition to chili flakes and a dash of soy, because once you get upstairs and you realize the salt balance is off, you’ll come all the way downstairs to scoop some of the stuff onto your lid while two of the cooks stare and the third gently chides you and points to a stack of little cups just waiting to be used. Oops.
Anyway, I also saw stuff like salads, sandwiches, and all kinds of prepared foods, plus bags of potato chips and new age bottled drinks. But you know what? All that you can find elsewhere, but I’m just blown away that I can get Mongolian right there in the blighted Midtown nexus. It’s kind of a big deal.

Pretty good place with different things to eat, from Mongolian bbq, sandwiches, soups, etc.
I had the Mongolian bbq and it was $ 8 total. There’s also outdoor seating, so we were able to eat with our pup!

Cool place to grab lunch in fashion district/​bryant park area. They have a yummy mongolian bbq grill where you can literally create your own noodle bowl. Yum!
They also have your basic deli lunches; sushi, pre-​made sandwiches, etc. You really can’t go wrong with this place. There is something for everyone.

Like many other revies have said, if you work in the area and are looking for a lunch spot with all the usual options AND MORE, Pergola is your place. You’ve got your soups, salads, sandwiches, sushi bar, hot bar, cold bar and Mongolian BBQ. Since I come here at least 2 times a week I’ll give you the low down on it all
Soups: don’t come here for the soups, the variety and quality are poor. Instead, walk the extra block to Pax or Hale and Hearty (beware the lines)
Sandwiches: some of the best around. I always order the California — avocado, tomato, sprouts, turkey and cheese — but have not been let down with other choices. Their bread selection is also decent.
Salads: always not crowded and have some great options for add-​ins and dressings. However, Chop’t is and will always remain the best salad place around so if you’re craving an unforgettable salad, go there (again, beware the lines)
Hot bar: great selection and unlike other places I’ve been to, everything actually looks edible and not made of hot plastic
Cold bar: fruits and cottage cheese as well as a build your own parfait station. Yum.
Mongolian BBQ: this is what makes Pergola simply the best lunch spot around. Pile meat, fish, tofu and veggies (THREE kinds of mushrooms alone!) to your hearts content and then sauce it up. Be warned, the weight adds up fast so take less then you instinctively want to grab. Also, on the right hand side of the «cooking station» there’s red chili flakes, garlic, and more sauce — a pinch of all three makes the dish even better. You can easily get a filling, healthy meal for under $ 8 (I know because I do this at least once a week and would say I have perfected the technique).
Bottom line? If you work nearby and need a quick bite, come to Pergola and try whatever your heart desires (cough Mongolian BBQ cough)

Pergola steadily takes $ 10+ from me a few times a week because it’s right next to my office and oh so convenient.
They have a great selection and got the Midtown office lunch down to a science. They have a awesome Mongolian stir fry buffet (pick your ingredients + sauce into a large wooden bowl, hand it over and they make it for you!) and buffet/​salad bar/​sandwich bar is not bad. Sushi/​ramen/​udon bar is pretty good too.
Pergola also starts running out of stuff at 1 a.m. so if you’re trying to grab a late lunch, don’t come here. I think around 12 they stop stocking the sushi and a few popular items a the Mongolian buffet is gone.
Also chit-​chat with the nice Korean manager (owner?) has become a part of my Pergola lunch routine, even though he usually makes fun of my poor Korean or gives me a guilt trip about where I ate lunch the day before.