Inner Mongolian food comes to the San Gabriel Valley at the Inner Mongolia based Xibei in Arcadia replacing Meizhou Dongpo in a real stunner. These oat noodles with chicken were wonderful and there are many other oat noodle choices. I always liked oat noodles but have only seen them occasionally at Shaanxi style restaurants. Besides being chewy and delicious, they are relatively low on the glycemic scale.
I am more than perplexed by the departure of Meizhou Dongpo, which at least at one time had a large following and was seemingly creating a small local restaurant empire, which included a location at Universal City Walk, and this quirky replacement in such a large space. There’s little food from Inner or Outer Mongolia locally, and obviously little existing demand. I’m sure they intend to create their own demand, but starting out in this large and high profile space makes me wonder, especially seeing that they weren’t especially busy, though I wasn’t there at peak time.
We just had dinner here. I’m gonna skip most of the meal which was excellent but they might have the best peking duck in LA. The presentation is nice with lots of crispy strips of skin and tender, succulent slices of meat with a ring of fat and skin. As a combo meal with a number of other dishes for $98, it’s a steal.
Oh, can you please spill the beans on what yoh ordered. Not remotely familiar with Mongolian food but am always looking for a nice - non DTF - option at that mall.
I’ll be honest… I can’t describe the seasoning of this place very well… It heavy on cumin, salt, pepper, but there’s some other spice that I can’t place. I just know I really enjoyed it. I think if you’ve been Ma’s in Rowland Heights or other Islamic spots, the flavors will be familiar yet slightly different.
Pair of beef ribs - these were meh. Not really worth it. Typical boiled meat without seasoning, then a chili powder to dip in on the side.
Roasted lamb shank - these were fantastic… had 3 orders. The outside is grilled and crispy in spots. But the meat inside is impossibly tender. My younger kid could not stop eating it.
Sweet and sour pork ribs - not the usual prep. More heavy on vinegar that sugar. And the meat was cooked to fall off the bone level. Ridiculously good.
Scallion grilled fish - another one that I can’t quite describe the flavor for. But its perfectly grilled bass that is flaky and moist, while the skin is crisp. Delicious.
Fried duck frame - this is a common prep for peking duck “spare parts.” where they take bones with some meat and skin and deep fry then season them. This was a new flavor though - if you grew up eating Hsin Tung Yang beef jerky and ate the spicy fruit flavor version, this really really really hits the spot!
Garlic shrimp vermicelli - a dry pot of vermicelli and meaty, perfectly cooked shrimp. Heavy on garlic, as the name suggests. Nothing was left!
Last thing… string beans. Not the usual gan bien string beans… this one had some chili added. My family couldn’t stop raving about, including the kids, who hate vegetables
This place doesn’t get much attention on the boards and I was skeptical given it was at the mall. But we had a great meal here!
Recipes in Inner Mongolian Features and Foods mention Sichuan peppercorns and caraway. Really not much info about that cuisine online, at least in English.
Yah, I saw your review! What didn’t you like? It’s a very different flavor profile than I’m used to and can’t say I’d want it all the time, unlike say Taiwanese cuisine. But we definitely had a good meal there! That lamb shank dish is to die for. FWIW, the kids also had 3 orders of the oat dumplings with shrimp, chives, and egg, which kept disappearing before I could get one.
I made an account just to comment on this post, because it came up when I searched for “inner mongolian food”
My family is from Inner Mongolia and I don’t get many chances to visit so I was really excited to hear that an Inner Mongolian youmian (oat noodle) chain was coming to Arcadia. Unfortunately, I thought the food was pretty average overall, and would much rather go to MJOY to get my lamb fix.
The two dishes I tried that seemed pretty good and authentic were the youmian yuyu (needle/fish shaped noodles) and the sticky rice dessert. The lamb shaomai were average, but I sort of expected that because the star of the dish is the fresh, meaty flavor of Inner Mongolian lamb (zero gaminess), and I don’t think it’s easy to recreate or imitate that in America.
The low point of the meal was the dish I was most looking forward to, the youmian wowo (honeycomb shaped noodles). It came covered in this weird tomato-based sauce that was super sweet and made the wowo super soggy, more like a bad pasta sauce than something that belonged with youmian. From some googling, it seems like the Xibei stores in China also have the same dish, which is surprising to me because it tasted like something they had done to try and appeal to the American palate.
Anyway I got the chance to visit Hohhot/Inner Mongolia afterwards and had some amazing youmian and Mongolian food, where I dunked steamed wowo noodles in a variety of flavorful lamb and beef-based soups/sauces, just like how I remembered from my childhood. Ironically my relative told me that everyone he knows hates Xibei because the flavor just doesn’t taste “right” to them and apparently it’s the more expensive, more “elevated” youmian place to go to if you want to show off.
Editing to show a pic of a youmian meal in china, but not at Xibei. You’re supposed to create a mix of potato/eggplant + lamb/beef broth + random pickles, and then dip the various styles of youmian into that to eat it. Granted, this is pretty fancy and what I remember from cheap places 20 years ago was more like just the noodles and a big bowl of soup.
It’s not clear to me what Xibei the restaurant is trying to be… I’m assuming Peking duck isn’t inner Mongolian, lol. Nor is sweet and sour pork ribs???
And that Oat wowo “spaghetti” was one we skipped because it looked so weird, which I guess we were right about.
