Masaki’s Mongolian Grill

Damn good food. A decent selection of ingredients for the Monglian BBQ side. A bit pricey but well worth it for the impeccable service.

Despite the negative reviews I decided to give this place a shot. I’m glad I did! I really like the build your bowl style places. Food was pretty good. The only reason I’m giving 3 stars is because it was pretty overpriced. I’m used to this style of place being under $ 10. This one was $ 14. However the food was good, nice and fresh, and I think the act of picking out your food is pretty fun so I’ll probably come back again. If it was less expensive i’d eat here a lot more.

Despite reading a lot of negative reviews on here, I was very pleasantly surprised. The experience was wonderful and everything was delicious. I ordered the single bowl and packed it as high as I could and had plenty of leftovers I am finishing today. Next time I need to try those atomic mushrooms and tempura fiddleheads!

No clue why this place does not have more stars! I have only had the bowl but you get to make it yourself, watch it prepared and add any garnish you want. I have never had a bad experience here, it’s fun! Staff is very friendly and fast too.

For the price it doesn’t get much better than this. I always leave full and with leftovers. However, is it great quality, no. The noodles always come out a little soggy in texture (that could be the amount of sauce that I put on though) and it is slightly bland in flavor. I always am a little hesitant about self serve places so I would like to thank the staff for the constant cleaning, restocking, and organization of the station. The staff is always so kind when I go there and the cooks are quick to make your food. I am not overjoyed with this place but I am never disappointed.

Food and service is great, unique atmosphere as its a Mongolian grill. Your bowl is as good/​big as you want to make it and they use fresh veggies every time

I have been coming to Masaki’s regularly for a couple of years now. I love being able to make my own bowl and have gotten my sauce combination down to a science. Unfortunately, things have been different recently.
The servers have always seemed stretched a little thin for the amount of customers, but it has been ridiculous lately. At least they’re always very pleasant. Something has changed with the food, too. On my last two trips, everything in bowl seemed undercooked (luckily I’m a vegetarian so it was just mushy tofu, not raw meat). The sauces tasted much saltier than usual, but somehow less flavorful at the same time.
I really hope the owners read their reviews. I used to love this place and want it to do well, but things are going downhill. Based on the other recent reviews, they’re already losing customers.

Flavorless. Overpriced. the staff is a bit pedestrian. And Now that I know some guy in law enforcement owns the place I will never go back #FTP
Oh and fresh cilantro looks a lot better than that dried up old shit you dorks put out for garnish at the end of the dreaded BOWL line.
Going out of business soon!

I gave it four stars instead of five solely for the price. The food was amazing and the service was excellent. The cook, knowing it was mine and my partners first time there, gave us a lot of helpful tips on how to stack our bowls to get the most from our money. I enjoyed the atmosphere and making my own combination BBQ.

Oh my gosh! The food is great but the service is horrible! We’ve come in often and after waiting to be seated for several minutes then not ordering we decided to follow the lead of several other people who were seated and just asked for a bowl! When we tried this, The server was offended and insisted on getting us our silverware and drinks first. We said we didn’t want anything to drink and finally brought us our bowls for the noodle bar. There should be a method to just come in, seat yourself and pick up your bowl. They really need to revisit this. The server is not able multitask and working people need to be able to quickly come in, eat and leave.

I really want to like this place more than I do. I think the idea is great and Humboldt really needs a place like this! Every time I try this place again I am reminded why I don’t go very often. This place is so DIRTY!!! I don’t know if they ever sweep the floor or wipe things down but the floor and counters are always covered in food and crumbs and look like a sticky mess. I know with this kind of setup food is certain to spill places but can no one grab a broom and sweep once in a while? The food is decent but the veggies always seem old. This evening the cilantro was clearly old and I ended up picking most of it off… I wish the owners would step up to the plate cuz this place has potential. I’ll just wait a few months and try yet again!

This review is for the food. It was really good. Overall the ambiance is bizarre and the table was rickety. Our server seemed nice but was pretty busy, when we were done with our noodle bowls he just brought us the check not even asking if we wanted anything else. The guy who was cooking did not seem too happy. I’ll come back for the noodle bowl.

I really like the idea of this place!
They have a combo but it’s a joke. You don’t get your appetizers until You already have your bowl. Let alone a water until your half way done with your meal. Some of the cooks are on it. Look you in the eye so they know whose bowl is whose. Others kinda refuse to make eye contact so your stuck standing there for sosometimes up ward’s of 20 min. They need to work a lil more on the process of cooking the bowls. And this would be a 5 star place

I’ve eaten here a few times over the past few years, and I have noticed that my experience each time has gotten progressively worse. It’s a little confusing walking in (due to the seperated eating spaces), especially if there is no host to tell you where to sit.
The main attraction for Masakis is their Create-​Your-​Own-​Bowl option which is where you receive a medium sized bowl, take a trip to the buffet-​style line, fill it up with the noodles, veggies, meats, and sauces that you want your stir-​fry to be made with, and pass your bowl off at the counter where you can watch it being made on a huge, open faced grill. I have always only ordered the one-​trip bowl option.
The service isn’t particularly quick, and I feel like each time I order the one bowl, the server is disappointed somehow. That could just be in my mind, however. The bowl is $ 13 for one trip, and that’s way overpriced for the size and options you get. When the location opened, it was only $ 9 for the bowl– a much more reasonable deal. The line with the bowl ingredients is always a bit disorderly, and more than one of the vegetable options had a used, empty tub sitting waiting to be changed out. The bowl they give you to fill up is pretty small, so you kind of have to stuff as much food in there as possible in order to get a better deal. It makes me feel kind of strange handing over an overflowing bowl to the employee working the grill. The three noodle options are alright, and the veggies are only okay. They don’t look particularly fresh or delicious. I often drench my bowl in sauces because I find if I don’t put enough, the bowl doesn’t come out very flavorful.
I suggest making your own stir fry at home for a better deal, and probably a better product.

The food was amazing. I went with a friend het and I are both line cooks and we loved the open kitchen. The server staff was awful but we didn’t need them because we got the one trip bowl.
If they get some better staff in there I’d give this place 5 stars

Food is pretty delicious! Came here for date night and got the one trip dinner. Meats were fresh, but not all the vegetable options were (specifically the bell pepper option). We upgraded our bowl to receive a soda, miso soup and bread pockets. Soup was tasty but the bread pockets were cold and a bit hard. Service was good and prompt. I would come here again, but maybe send the breads back and ask for new ones /​ask for fresher vegetable options.

I give this place one star because there food is good. That is it.
Horrible service, it was not even busy and our waiter forgot about us and didn’t give us our bowls to start our food until about 15 mins after we had ordered. The cooks are pretty snooty and decided to take a smoke break while we were preparing our bowls. Last but not least, the place was a mess, veggies and meat containers were empty and there was food all over the counter. I had to ask 4 times if they could refill things and like I said they weren’t busy so they could have been cleaning up a bit.
I hope the owner or manager reads this and does something about it. This place could be good but it’s not

Im sold on this place. I visit it at least once a week.
I would give it five stars, if not for overwhelmed staff.

When they say it’s never as good as the first and they’re always right.
I’ve been coming here for over a year and each time it’s less impressive. The food bowl is smaller than when the place first open but we got over it. And the later successive time the service is just S.L.O.W.
This last time my friend had to send the bread back because it’s not the same consistency he’s used to eating.
I really want to like this place a lot.
Their overpriced drink used to be great also.
I’ll give it another try

Pro’s: Plenty of parking, atmosphere inside is trendy and reminds me of San Fran/​Sacramento sushi bars, servers and cooks are really nice, dining area has plenty of space, atmosphere is a fun place to hangout.
Con’s: Menu is limited, reservations are needed or you won’t get a table, wait time is terrible — I mean really awful!
I went here for dinner with some friends. We got there and were greeted and seated promptly. Two of the people in my party of 4 were late and seated without menus. About 10 minutes went by before our waitress realized we didn’t have enough menus and brought us 2 more.
We made our drink order and waited another ten minutes to get them and place our food order. I ordered the duck eggrolls for $ 9 and then went to go make my bowl of food. There was a steady flow of people going to make their bowls, but the condition of the serving table was atrocious. The rice noodles and mushrooms were completely gone. Almost everything was low and cross contaminated with neighboring food.
As standard meat choices you get beef, chicken, and pork. There were meat scraps lying on the serving area for the whole 30 minutes I was up there making my food. When I got to the sauces, one was missing and another was out of place. The teriyaki tasted like it was straight from the bottle. The Garlic sauce appeared to be Costco minced garlic in water. All the other sauces aren’t even worth mentioning. The sign said add at least 3 scoops of sauce — my friend suggested six. I added eight (4 teriyaki, 2 garlic, and 2 chilly) and my food tasted bland! All that took about 8 minutes to get through the line… then it came time to get my food cooked.
I waited for about 6 people in front of me to go. It’s not that they take a long time to cook food, it’s that the Mongolian grill can only fit 3 or 4 bowls of food on it at once and each bowl takes about 5 – 7 minutes to cook.
So now I’m back at the table ready to eat expecting my egg rolls to be done. NOPE! I ask the server and she looked surprise that they had not come out yet. I ate my tasteless bowl of food and waited some more… She came by about 10 minutes later and said my egg rolls were on the way. As I literally ate my last bite of food… a whole 50 minutes after ordering the egg rolls, they finally came out. My first impression was that for $ 9 I only got two 5 inch egg rolls? Regardless, I was excited so I eat one… worst egg roll ever! I would rather eat those microwave ones filled with cabbage and other bad fillings. My total bill was $ 26 — Not worth it! Not going back! I don’t give out 1 stars very often… and never in Arcata.