Asian Food
New Chinese restaurant slays Southlake with juicy dumplings and noodles
A new Chinese restaurant in Southlake open less than a month is already slaying diners with its juicy soup dumplings and hand-pulled noodles. Called Dragon House, it's open at 2640 E. Southlake Blvd., in what was most recently a Pollo Tropical, and before that a Steak N Shake.
According to a representative from the restaurant, Dragon House opened on April 3, with a menu of authentic mainland Chinese food in an upscale setting, perfect for the Southlake crowd.
The menu is expansive, with Szechuan, Shanghainese, Americanized Chinese, dim sum, and even a few Thai items such as pad Thai.
Real-deal dishes include glutinous balls with mushrooms and greens, dan dan noodles, salt-and-pepper shrimp, and Singapore noodles. Stand-out vegetarian dishes include eggplant in garlic sauce and a cauliflower hot pot.
But the stars of the show are xiao long bao, also known as soup dumplings, sometimes known as juicy dumplings. They feature a station where you can watch the dumplings being made.
They also have a display where you can see noodles being pulled by hand.
The soup dumplings are steamed and brought to the table in a covered bamboo dish, six doughy rounds to an order, appealing twisted on top to close. The filling inside, is either your choice of ground pork or shrimp, along with hot broth, which seeps out once you break it open. The combination of the filling, the hot broth, and the soft dough is a comfort food that's easy to love.
Other delicacies include pan-fried pork buns with hot broth, with a brown and crunchy bottom that contrasts with the softness of the dumpling on top; and scallion pancakes, a pan-fried crispy pancake with chopped scallions mixed into the batter.
There's an amazing dish called turnip puffs, consisting of pan-fried puffs with sliced turnip and matcha powder; and a trendy dish called honeycomb pan-fried dumplings, also known as Guo Tie, where pork dumplings are fried together in a honeycomb shape.
There are also the usual assortment of "Chinese" dishes you find at most restaurants, such as fried rice and kung pao chicken. You can't have a Chinese restaurant in the suburbs without those staples.
