See more of Dragon Bowl's casually cool dining room and pan-Asian dishes in our slideshow.
Theo Sanchez
The WASP-y Kennedy Hand Roll showcases a large piece of tempura-battered lobster.
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Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays.
Kennedy Hand Roll: $7
Pork belly buns: $7
Thai corn cakes: $7
Third Coast hand roll: $6
Salmon skin hand roll: $6
Hippie fried rice: $9
Commander Ken's chicken: $10
Crispy duck curry: $15
S'mortune cookie: $5
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SLIDESHOW: Dragon Bowl: Pan-Asian and Casually Cool
BLOG POST: Dropping Benjamins at Dragon Bowl
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Poring over the new menu at Dragon Bowl Asian Bistro on a recent Friday night, I was stunned to see options at the Heights hangout such as a Third Coast hand roll with crispy fried oysters and jalapeño relish, and a crispy duck curry with a confit of leg in a Thai-style red curry. When I'd heard that Michael dei Maggi — former chef-owner at The Rockwood Room and most recently of the now-closed Caffe Bello — had been hired by Dragon Bowl's owner Ken Bridges to revamp the menu at the low-key, pan-Asian bistro, I hadn't known what to expect. And now I knew.
My dining companion and I took advantage of the happy hour pricing to try one of the most attractive-looking new menu items, choosing two pork belly buns for $6. What came out could have been a meal on its own, and for a while, the buns completely distracted us from reading the rest of the menu.
Inside the fluffy white mantou, which most people will recognize as the buns that normally accompany Peking duck, was a thick stump of pork belly that jiggled with fatty promise as our waiter set the dishes down on the table. The pork belly was fully encased on one edge with a husky strip of cracklin', the pork skin bubbly and crisp and demanding to be eaten deliberately. There is a skill involved in getting the right ratio of cracklin' to pork belly in your mouth at the same time, after all.
In near silence, we ate the pillowy bun wrapped around juicy pork and crunchy skin, the salty-slick taste met by bites of scallion and sweet plum sauce that I dragged the bun through before each bite.
"Now I know what dei Maggi is doing here," I said to my friend as we finished. And after that, I zeroed in on the hand rolls that occupy their own piece of real estate on the menu, many of them a bargain at $6. The man could do a pork bun, but could he do sushi rice?
The answer was also a strong "yes." That Third Coast roll and a salmon skin hand roll arrived cheekily set in red, Tiki-style cocktail glasses, a nod to the more modern and playful direction of the revamped restaurant.
A salmon skin roll is nothing new on a sushi menu, but here it's further developed, with marinated salmon belly tucked into the roll alongside crispy fried strips of salmon skin that look like soft-shell crab legs sticking out all akimbo, its spiciness and glorious fattiness tempered by sweetly vegetal watercress and well-vinegared rice.
The Third Coast roll was even more of a hit, with a fat Gulf oyster breaded and fried oh-so-lightly and occupying almost the entire length of the hand roll. A punchy jalapeño relish inside oozed out of the bottom like ice cream out of a cone as I crunched through the oyster and the Napa cabbage in fast pursuit of it. And like a little kid eating an ice cream cone, I was devastated when it was gone.
Then again, it was only $6. Which means I can look forward to many more of these treats without destroying my budget.
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Those $6 hand rolls are key at Dragon Bowl. When owner Ken Bridges initially opened the restaurant in 2006, it was his aim to create what my friends and I refer to as a "useful restaurant." A useful restaurant offers solidly good food at affordable prices in a convenient and cozy location. Simple as that. And for a few years, Bridges accomplished this goal while also running his Pink's Pizza locations and opening a new restaurant down the street, Lola.
Then, Dragon Bowl started to slip downhill. It had never been the "best" of anything, really, but it had consistently good items on its pan-Asian menu, like fried rice, pad Thai and bulgogi. It had always done a brisk to-go business on its busy corner in the Heights, but the food was slowly creeping into mediocre territory.
Bridges had to make a decision: give up the ghost completely and sell the restaurant, or fully reinvest in the place and rebuild it, Six Million Dollar Man-style, into something better than it was before — better, stronger, faster. Luckily, he chose the latter option and began shopping around town for a bona-fide chef to head up his operation.
He found that chef in Michael dei Maggi, a man who's seen a tumble from grace as owner of swank steakhouse Rockwood Room, which closed unexpectedly last year. After that he went to work for Tony Vallone at Caffe Bello, but they parted ways over the doomed direction of the restaurant, which itself recently closed. While some may rightly question dei Maggi's track record and his ultimate fit with Bridges and Dragon Bowl, it's difficult to question his impact on the menu here.
Witness that duck leg confit in a viscous red curry with piney, citrusy swirls from galangal in the broth, sweetness from an abundance of red and yellow bell peppers, and a single, fat leg lazing in the middle of it all with dark, dusky, tender flesh that parts seemingly with a look, no knife required. Or the easily constructed sushi rolls with soft pats of vinegared-rice underneath generous cuts of fish. Neither the rice nor the fish are served cold, a fact I relished while letting some buttery slices of escolar slip down my throat like the forbidden treat they are.
