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| - J pointed out 301 Mongolia to me on our way in to Destihl the night before, and I must admit I was pretty excited to try it out as we both love Flat Top Grill. So, when she informed me that's where we were going for dinner the next night... woohoo!
When we arrived around 7pm on a weekday, I was impressed by the look of the place. Personally, I loved the muted red color of the globe lights and the open feeling of the restaurant. The hostess and our server were friendly. Practically empty, customer-wise. I perused the food options as we were seated and liked the variety of veggies, sauces and proteins. So far, so good!
We ordered drinks and an app - the Mongolian Nachos. I liked my Martini, another smooth sipping winner... J's Margarita packed quite a liquor whallop... and I hated te nachos (even with some help from sauces from the stir fry bar, it was dull city).
On to the main event - and I'll compare my finds at 301 to Flat Top for those of you who've tried FT. 301 had more basic veggie choices (no premixed 'stir fry veggie' bins), and a whole bin of bean sprouts (yah! my fav stir fry veg). There appears to be an equal amount of sauce choices at both locations, but the sauce flavors at 301 were not as robustly seasoned. 301 had many more protein choices than FT but no vegetarian options that I could see (FT kicks butt on veg protein options). I was able to make my 301 stir fry into a soup, but there was not enough broth and the flavor just wasn't there (and I swear I put 6 ladles of sauces into my stir fry). 301 had more herb and spice shakers too. 301's roti bread was good (and they'll give you extra, same as FT), but FT's roti is just amazing.
If I'm craving stir fry in Champaign, I'll stick with Flat Top.
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