Dragonfish
909 SW Park Avenue
Portland, Oregon
503-243-5991
open 7 days
Chicken lettuce cups taste okay, but $8.45 for a quarter-head of iceberg lettuce and a cup of diced chicken is too much, even if the fowl is cooked with shittake mushrooms and pine nuts (apparently the ‘pan’ in pan-Asian covers a lot of geography). The server told us hichimi squid wasn’t fried, but rather tossed in a Japanese spice blend. What arrived at the table was just like every other uninspired platter of over-breaded, deep-fried calamari, except this one came with a bland white sauce dubbed “sesame aoili.”
Nigiri sushi is only available at lunch and during their buck-a-piece special "sushi hours" in the bar (4 -6 pm and 10 pm-1 am). While the little mounds of sticky rice topped with slices of raw fish looked pretty on their lacquered trays, they had absolutely no flavor.
What the menu described as “stir-fried prawns and scallops with peppers on crisp noodle cake” appeared strikingly similar to a basic Chinese seafood platter on pan-fried noodles, complete with bok choy, and big slices of onion. Unfortunately, it also had the same taste of too much cheap cooking oil that’s not uncommon in Chinese restaurants that skimp on quality.
I did like a few things. Miso soup with clams combined the tangy, slightly salty flavor of the fremented bean curd paste with local steamers, and the two went together so well I wondered why more restaurants don’t offer the same thing. An Americanized Thai beef salad ($8.65) was a decent adaption for domestic palates, even if it was more about beef than the original nua lap. Ditto for bulgogi, Korean barbecue that typically consists of short ribs marinated with sesame oil, soy, ginger, and green onions but here means a tender chunk of skirt steak and, based on the flavor, only a few drops of the marinade. I didn’t try many desserts, but was pleasantly surprised by a simple date palm sugar custard, a creamy puck of snow-white pudding set in a tangy lime-kiwi “soup.” It was so good I could almost forgive the rest of the meal.
Even when the food is acceptable and you can overlook the price, the service can be erratic. Several dishes require assembly or at least a little explanantion as to what to do with which bowl of sauce, but diners are on their own to figure it out. Tables are set with chopsticks only, and a meaty dish like the bulgogi will come with a steak knife but no fork. I’m sure you can get one if you asked, but the servers should make the offer.
The original Dragonfish in Seattle is very popular, and maybe if the Portland version had the same showy exhibition kitchens (a wok station and robata grill, which is a Japanese term for fireside cooking, not a grill manned by robots) it might compensate for the food. Our Dragonfish is conveniently located beween the Schnitz and a new multiplex, but that’s about all it’s got going.
When I was growing up in a small town in southern Oregon, Chinese food meant a trip to the chow mein palace on the edge of town for a bowl of chicken and vegetables thickened with cornstarch, spiked with MSG, and served on crunchy noodles from a can with a little red-capped bottle of Kikkoman alongside. If we lived in a town like that, Dragonfish’s “pan-Asian” menu would be a welcome change. But we don’t, and it’s not.
The best restaurants grow out of a passion for food and cooking. Dragonfish seems more like the result of a well-crafted marketing strategy, and one that apparently works. Every time I walk by the place, it’s packed.