Mystery Diner in Algonquin: Build your perfect dish at Jiang’s Mongolian Grill

Tucked in the Algonquin Commons sits Jiang’s Mongolian Grill.

Known for its build-your-own stir-fry, Jiang’s has a buffet-style setup where the customer grabs a bowl and tray and begins creating.

The menu is affordable and diverse, with Jiang’s charging by the plate, the price also dependent on when you decide to dine in. A lunch bowl Monday through Saturday comes out to $12.99, while both a dinner bowl and any standard bowl on Sunday costs $14.99.

The restaurant walks the customer through the creative process with its menu when the diner sits down.

Included with building your own stir-fry is a soup and salad bar. It also acts as an alternative to ordering a stir-fry meal, providing unlimited soup and salad selections for $8.99.

In addition, Jiang’s offers appetizers along with its entrees, including crab Rangoon ($5.95), egg rolls ($3.50), spring rolls ($3.50) and pork dumplings ($7.50).

The first step in building your own stir-fry is to pick a meat or other protein. There is plenty of variety, including imitation crab, barbecue chicken and fish.

For our stir-fry, I chose to do a mix of peppered beef with shrimp. For vegetables, I decided on mini corn, snap peas, mushrooms, onions and broccoli to bring out the best in the beef and shrimp. The lineup of vegetables to choose from also included soy beans, jalapeños, peas, carrots and green peppers.

The next culinary building step was to select the sauce from more than 10 options, including peanut sauce, sweet and sour, teriyaki, and orange sauce. We decided to go with the spicy Szechuan.

The final decision was to pick a grain to pair with the dish. The customer has one of three choices, including white rice, rice noodles and Chinese noodles. I opted to go with the Chinese noodles.

Once the customer is done gathering ingredients they’d like for their meal, they head over to the chef in the middle section of the restaurant. There sits a large, circular, flat-top grill helmed by the chef, who cooks all the patrons’ ingredients. The diner is given a number for this element of the process, and the chef announces it once the food is cooked.

The chef called us over to the grill to hand us the dish, whose presentation looked phenomenal.

The beef was tender and paired well with the broccoli. Despite the restaurant noting the Szechuan sauce would be spicy, it was not particularly hot. Overall, the collaborative dish turned out hearty and delicious.

At Jiang’s, patrons determine their dining destiny, with the interactive component adding its own flavor to the experience.

• The Mystery Diner is an employee at the Northwest Herald. The diner’s identity is not revealed to the restaurant staff before or during the meal. If the Mystery Diner cannot recommend the establishment, we will not publish a story.

Note to readers: We welcome you to share your recommendations of places you would like the Mystery Diner to visit. Please email ideas to tips@nwherald.com.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Jiang’s Mongolian Grill

WHERE: 1740 S. Randall Road, Algonquin

PHONE: 847-458-9888

INFORMATION: www.jmgrill.com