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Thursday, January 10th at 7:30 PM Sharp!
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DRAGON RESTAURANT |
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966 S Vermont Avenue |
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Los Angeles 90006 |
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(213) 387-8833 |
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Although there is
valet parking in the back of the restaurant, it
is a lot easier to park on both sides of Vermont
Ave. after 7 pm. This restaurant is very
big but extremely popular as well, so the valet
parking tends to be very frenetic!
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 Where
to go for really good Chinese food? Oddly
enough, it would be in Koreatown.
Koreans know and appreciate the food of their
big neighbor, but they like to enliven it a bit,
serving kimchi and spicy condiments
alongside.
Located on Vermont Avenue just north of Olympic
Boulevard, the Dragon may be one of the best
Chinese restaurants in Koreatown. Owner T.J.
Wang was born in Seoul to restaurateur parents
from Shandong province in China, and has been
involved with Chinese cuisine all his life.
Much of the menu is familiar, with its wonton
soup, almond chicken and sweet-and-sour pork,
but also included are more rarefied dishes such
as sea cucumber with roast pork and cold
jellyfish in garlic sauce. It's wise to ask the
servers for suggestions.
One of the best off-menu dishes is the
unbelievably giant
pork meatballs that are browned, then steamed
for hours, arriving draped with spinach in a
bowl of rich brown sauce. It's on hand most of
the time.
The stuffed mushrooms, regal enough for a
banquet, are filled with shrimp and sliced
shiitake, forming a ring around shredded cabbage
and tomato slices. A thicket of parsley on top
supports a chrysanthemum carved from a turnip,
as pink as the flowers on the wall.
Lightly fried mandarin-style noodles are barely
visible under a generous topping of beef,
shrimp, chicken and vegetables too numerous to
list. Chachiang mein, the most popular
noodle in Korean-Chinese restaurants, is cooked
with a jet-black sauce that includes zucchini,
onion and pork or beef. The Dragon pairs it with
a variety of dishes as lunch specials. The
second most popular Korean style Chinese noodle
dish is the Jambong, which is a hot spicy thick
noodle dish with shrimp and squid.
Noodles turn up again in minced chicken with
lettuce leaves. The leaves are spread with
hoisin sauce and topped with diced chicken,
sweet peppers, slivers of black fungus and
slim-fried noodles, which add an appealing
crunch. Roll the leaf around the filling, then
pick it up like a burrito. Fish with hot chile
bean sauce has a crunchy crumb coating.
The northern Chinese influence that dominates
the cuisine shows up in sweet-and-sour shrimp,
which are not as sweet and brightly colored as
Cantonese versions -- the usual sweet pepper and
pineapple are missing. Chicken (or beef) with
orange sauce is also less sweet and cloying than
you'd find in Cantonese restaurants.
"Sautéed happy family" combines a mass of
seafood with many kinds of vegetables. Before
ordering, ask what is included. If gelatinous,
dark-gray sea cucumber doesn't make you happy,
the restaurant will leave it out.
Shrimp in hot garlic sauce is equally complex,
adding more vegetables than you would expect.
It's not exceptionally hot, nor is Sichuan
shredded pork with hot sauce as spicy as you'd
expect.
The Dragon knows the value of simplicity. What
could be more beautiful in spring than a stack
of crisp, barely cooked asparagus, or a heap of
emerald shreds that turn out to be pea sprouts,
so lightly cooked they're still chewy? The only
additions are a spoonful of oyster sauce in one
and garlic and enoki mushrooms in the other.
Rice comes with meals, but the restaurant also
makes northern Chinese-style steamed breads,
good for dipping into the sauces. They're small,
light and delicately sweet, and you may find you
prefer them to rice.
Northern starters include hot-and-sour soup with
a nice vinegary edge and plenty of black pepper.
Loaded with tofu, this spicy soup comes with
lunch specials.
Spicy shrimp soup with noodles is popular,
possibly because the blend of seasonings seems
more Korean than Chinese.
The drink list is another indicator that you are
in a Korean-Chinese restaurant. You might see
people passing around a bottle of soju,
the clear Korean spirit, and others drinking
Korean beer.
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If you are planning
on attending, please RSVP by sending an
email to:
rsvp@apgf.org
by Wednesday, January 9th. Please
indicate how many will be in your party.
This event is dutch treat and is open to
everyone! Non-members are invited to
attend!
Click here to RSVP
Event coordinator:
Steven L |
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