When traveling you can always find the standard American-Chinese food places where the rice looks like plastic pieces and people rave over their sweet & sour chicken.  In Holland there is a place where the Mongolian Beef is the best and I’ve got to admit they are right.  I’m speaking of China Inn.

China Inn is a casual sit down restaurant that also has a classier feel as well as a bar which is something rare in Holland for Chinese restaurants.  Their menu offers many standard Chinese dishes such as Egg Fu Yung, Sweet & Sour Chicken and General Tso’s Chicken but I am here for one thing only.  The Mongolian Beef is what I am speaking of and with the lunch special you get so much food for your money that you almost can’t eat it all.

I order the Mongolian Beef lunch special and it comes with soup of choice, hot tea, crab meat rangoons and Mongolian Beef next to fried rice.  I dunno what tea they use but I find the hot tea here very pleasant.  It feels like a green tea but has no bite and is never burnt or tart tasting like most due to them over steeping the tea.

Next came the soup.  I chose Hot n Sour soup but you could also go with the Egg Drop.  I love Hot n Sour and this place had large pieces of mushrooms, tofu and carrots and it also brought a great heat element that made my nose water a little.  Growing up eating large amounts of authentic Mexican food from my Grandma, I have grown accustomed to eating things that offer a lot of flavor as well as a spicy heat due to various peppers and spices.  I relate to Asian food in the way that it brings together the same blends but offer a sweet element in their spicy also.

When my food came I was already waterlogged with all the tea and soup I was eating but was ready to rock on some beef.  Most Mongolian Beef recipes I have seen have three key ingredients, the beef, the green onions and the sauce.  While most are a gravy sauce this plate has more of a sweet n sticky sauce which when paired with the crunchy noodles underneath make an explosion of flavor in my mouth.  The crab rangoons are tasty and made in house and the rice is soft and made right too.  every bite of this plate offers an array of flavors from sweet to garlicky, oniony to salty.

While you can get Mongolian Beef at almost any Chinese restaurant I have never been able to find one that tasted this good.  I plan to make this a regular stop when I am home craving good Chinese.  And at under $7 a meal you can really not go wrong.  They also offer a take out location on the south side of Holland and another in West Branch, Michigan but this is the only real location in my opinion.