Mongolia!

Searching for Mongolian food when bd's mongolian grill exists in your city makes things difficult, let me tell you. There's nothing like a salad bar full of raw meat to make you feel like you're getting a taste of real Mongolian food. 

I gave up and decided to go to Sichuan Hot Pot which seemed to have some Northern Chinese dishes at least and yes, Mongolian Beef. The restaurant was on the edge of Asiatown, which I wrote about when we went for Vietnamese food, and in one of the few buildings that still shows its roots. 

The inside was nothing special, but the service was quick and friendly. The menu was large, seemed to have some authentic dishes, and offered a category for Seafoot. How could I go wrong!

I placed my too-many-dishes-for-one-person order of Dumplings in Chili Sauce, BBQ Lamb in Westfield Style (more on this to come!), and Mongolian Beef. 

Order in, time to research! 

Mongolia is located right in between Russia and China and is home to almost three million people - between 25-40% of whom are still living a nomadic lifestyle! It's the world's least populated country and almost half of the people live in the capital, Ulaanbaatar. There are thirteen times more horses than humans and sheep outnumber people 35 to 1 in Mongolia. 

Mongolian guest culture is very strong. They will often greet their guests with a bowl of airag -fermented horse milk. It is considered disrespectful to refuse a cup of this. Mongolian cuisine is mostly dairy, meat, and animal fat. Lamb is most common in rural areas and steamed dumplings (buuz) filled with meat are popular in the cities. Horse, camel, and yak are also easy to find on plates and their milks are used for the aforementioned fermented milk as well as cheeses. Salted milk tea is an everyday beverage and thanks to the Russians, vodka is also widely popular. 

Time to eat!

As usual, I over-ordered, but with the intention of bringing home lots of leftovers. First up was the BBQ Lamb in Westfield Style. I had no idea what Westfield Style meant, but I knew that lamb was a popular meat and when I did a Google search for "Westfield Style," this came up which seemed promising: Xinjiang style grilled lamb, an iconic street snack in Northern China. When summer comes, locals crowd the streets of Beijing. They sit outdoors, wearing t-shirts and flip flops, snacking on lamb skewers and drinking cold beer. People call them “old Beijing skewers” nowadays. But the food originated in Xinjiang, the largest Chinese administrative division, where the majority of people are ethnically Uighur and religiously Muslim. So not exactly Mongolian, but lamb and Northern Chinese and well, that was going to have to do. It didn't come out on skewers though, but it DID come out absolutely delicious. It was spicy and full of flavor. This is probably the best strictly meat Asian dish that I've ever had. I love lamb, but even those who don't would like this. 

Next up was the Mongolian Beef which was a notch better than most Mongolian Beef dishes you've probably had. Mongolian Beef isn't actually Mongolian - it originated in Taiwan where Mongolian BBQ restaurants first appeared. (Goddamnit!) This version had some great mushrooms and spring onions. 

While intended to be an appetizer, the Dumplings in Chili Sauce were the last to arrive to the table. I took that as a good sign though because that probably meant that they were made to order. Whoa. These dumplings were GOOD. I love any and all dumplings, so it's hard to go wrong, but these were Next Level. The chili sauce was spicy and left my lips tingling a little, the dough was chewy, and the meat filling was packed full of flavor. My plan of only eating a couple quickly went to the wayside as I didn't want to risk losing the amazing taste/texture during a reheat at home. Every single dumpling was gone in minutes, complete with chili sauce dripping down my chin. 

While not really Mongolian food, this was an excellent meal and one that I'm really excited about eating again in a few minutes. I brought home almost the entire plate of both the lamb and the beef because I had stuffed myself with the dumplings. Sorry not sorry. 

Sichuan Hot Pot

2162 Rockwell Ave.

Cleveland, OH 44114

216.523.1188

Website

Operating Hours:

MON - SAT | 11am - 9pm

SUN | 12pm - 9pm