If this restaurant served more generous portions and focused on its cuisine it could attract a larger share of the food-loving Jhamel crowd
With every inch decked out in red wallpaper, red paper lanterns, and red carpet, Golden Dragon ticks all the boxes for the ultimate Chinese restaurant stereotype. It even has a fish tank, a giant statue, and a seven page long menu offering everything from chicken chilli to Peking fish fritt to the grander hot pot to complete your ‘authentic’ Chinese experience. Perhaps if we were given fortune cookies to warn us of the impending bad food, we would have left the red sea with minimal damage to our eyes and tummies.
PICS: BHRIKUTI RAI
We began lunch with a bowl of vegetable hot and sour soup (Rs 175) that looked appetising on the photo on the menu. In reality, it could be mistaken for a simple egg soup. With no vegetables and the overpowering hotness of chillies, the soup was just a taste of what awaited us. We dug into our second order of Peking fish fritt (Rs 225), fried pieces of fish sautéed with spring onions, carrots and garnished with red chilli flakes, with much enthusiasm, only to be disappointed again. More spring onions than actual pieces of fish decorated the plate and the dish was nothing to write home about.
Spicy Chinese style pork (Rs 225) was another let down because rather than pork meat, we were served a few thin slices of pork skin stir fried in sesame oil with garlic and coriander. Although oily, the gravy pleased our taste buds and we saved some for later to be eaten with rice.
For mains we ordered pak choy with black mushroom (Rs 255), sesame chicken (Rs 280), and bowls of steam rice (Rs 80). Golden Dragon even manages to spoil good old simple steamed rice. I still can’t decide if the rice was stale or under-cooked, but it came to us lukewarm, definitely not what we wanted on a rainy day. With cubes of deep fried chicken, that hadn’t been seasoned well and flavours seeping only to the outer skin, the sesame chicken was another bad choice.
The only dish that didn’t have us, a trio of hungry women, complaining was the cabbage and black mushroom stir fry, which surprisingly was served in a bigger platter and prepared well.
Golden Dragon migrated from its base in Thamel to Jhamsikhel three months ago, but there were only two other customers besides us during rush hour lunch-time. If the restaurant served more generous portions and focused on its cuisine rather than unnecessary ‘Chinese’ details, it could attract a larger share of the food-loving Jhamel crowd.
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How to get there: Golden Dragon is opposite Roadhouse Cafe in Jhamsikhel in the alley that leads towards Alpha’s High School.