Karl A.
Yelp
I wish my experience with Happy Dragon's food the other night had been in some way impressive or remarkable - aside from Bing Bing on Passyunk, I really haven't found any Chinese restaurants in South Philly that satisfy me - but the order left me totally flat.
I ordered 3 things - a shrimp egg roll, an order of "dumpling soup", and an order of kung pao chicken. The shrimp roll was totally fine - it tasted like a generic shrimp spring roll and that's all I was expecting from it. Nothing made it stand out relative to other shrimp egg rolls I've had over the years, but it tasted fine and had enough shrimp. I guess I feel pretty positive-neutral about it.
The best thing from my order was the dumpling soup. I ordered it not really knowing what to expect since the menu also has wonton soup listed, a dish which could reasonably also be called a "dumpling soup". I was kind of hoping the dumpling soup would be the kind of tiny, delicate wontons/dumplings that you can get at places like Shaxian Delicacies and some other more authentic places. I didn't get that - quite the opposite, actually. This dish came with I think 3 (maybe 4?) large, thick pork dumplings in a broth with sliced carrots and mushrooms. Thankfully, they still tasted pretty good - the broth and the pork inside of the dumplings were both more flavorful than anything else I received, and while it was a small order, the dumplings were reasonably filling.
And that brings us to the worst part of the meal, which was unfortunately my entre. I sometimes order kung pao when I eat at Americanized Chinese restaurants because it's a dish that very much does exist in China, and can often be massively flavorful and satisfying. But the thing is, more often than not I wind up getting disappointed because Americanized kung pao never contains a fraction of the flavor of its Chinese counterpart and often because way too much vegetable filler finds its way into the dish (I swear one place in Fishtown gave me a platter than was half celery, a vegetable that as far as I'm concerned doesn't belong in kung pao chicken at all). As far as vegetable content, this one definitely had way more types of vegetables in mix than I would expect, but I was actually excited to see that if they were veggie-loading it, they had at least included water chestnuts, which are at least a filler veggie that I always enjoy and rarely get to eat. But the flavor...well, there wasn't any flavor. Like, at all. It just tasted like plain chicken and vegetables in a viscous but completely unseasoned sauce. I, in a bit of a rush, threw garlic powder, chili flakes, cumin, and white pepper on the leftovers the next day and it JUST got to a point where it started to see like it had flavor.
So this overall wasn't for me, and the blandness of the kung pao took me a bit aback (it even had a pepper next to it on the menu denoting spice!). But the dumpling soup wasn't bad at all and the egg roll was thoroughly passable, and I know I can be a bit hard on Americanized Chinese food sometimes. Depending on your own preferences re:Chinese food, don't necessarily pass on Happy Dragon just because I was unimpressed - just go in with tempered expectations.