@(Html.Kendo().TabStrip()...
And the other I do on the Jquery document ready to set the configuration options.
I am doing this because I can’t seem to find another way to do this in the html helper.
Where should I be setting the configurations options(For instance collapsible and animation)?

Example code would be great as I don't see examples for this on your site.

public class PlaceModel
{
    public Guid Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
 
    public PlaceModel()
    {
    }
}
Here is mycontroller
namespace Noolibee.Presentation.Web.SandBox.Controllers
{
    public class InventoryController : Controller
    {
        //
        // GET: /Inventory/
 
        public ActionResult Inventory()
        {
            //Get all places in the database
            IInventoryService serviceRepo = ServiceBusinessFactory.Create<IInventoryService>();
            List<INV_Place> places = serviceRepo.GetAllPlaces();
 
            //Convert the places to a placeModel (for testing purpose)
            List<PlaceModel> placesModel = new List<PlaceModel>();
            foreach (INV_Place item in places)
            {
                placesModel.Add(new PlaceModel() { Id = item.Id, Name = item.Name });
            }
 
            //Return the view with the list of placeModel for the combobox
            return View(placesModel.AsEnumerable<PlaceModel>());
        }
    }
}
End finally, my webpage:
@model IEnumerable<Noolibee.Presentation.Web.SandBox.Models.PlaceModel>
@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Inventory";
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
}
 
<h2>Inventory (size = @Model.Count())</h2>
 
<div>
        @(Html.Kendo().ComboBox()
            .Name("placesDropDownList")
            .DataTextField("Name")
            .DataValueField("Id")
            .BindTo(Model)
            .SelectedIndex(0)
        )
 
         
</div>
So, the value @Model.Count tells me that there's 1 item, but the combobox is empty.