Dragon House ~ Highland Village, Texas

Other location: Southlake. They also plan to open up in the city of Dallas soon

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My close friends, Soundgardens Cuz and his wife, Realtor Queen took me to the new Dragon House in Highland Village for my birthday. I know the current trend around DFW is handmade dumplings and handpulled noodles and saw they offered them as well. But Dragon House sets itself apart from others. First, its a more elegant dining experience and yes, that does mean it's a bit more expensive than others I've been to. Highland Village is a great location for this upscale type of dining experience. I don't always subscribe to that, but it was nice! Our server was super attentive, but RQ noted that our dishes arrived right after the appetizer came. She saw the same occur at a nearby table. 

OK, on to the food and menu. They have a very big menu and includes hand drawn noodles, handmade dumplings/wontons, beef noodle soups, fried rice and fried noodle pages, and some traditional dishes like Mongolian Beef, Hunan and Kung Pao Chicken, etc. They even had dim sum items. We started with an appetizer of Wontons in chili sauce. We loved them. Pork and veggie filled noodles in a bath of slightly hot, lightly sweet sauce with scallions. We liked the sauce so well, we ladled some over steamed rice. My friends ordered from the lunch menu where small portions of soup, rice, edamame and a spring roll are included. They had Mongolian Beef and Kung Pao Chicken. I tasted them and found them very good. I decided to try the clear hand pulled noodles. Hand pulled clear noodles?? I've never seen or heard of this. Sign me up! I assumed it would be like a glass noodle dish with beef and veggies. It was more like a cross between beef noodle soup and pho. I would not call these noodles clear (when I hear clear noodles, I usually think glass, bean thread noodles), they reminded me of rice noodles like in pho. Don't get me wrong, they were good, but not what I expected. I didn’t expect soup either. ** The broth was mild, but flavorful. Fresh snow peas, carrots and broccoli were welcome and the beef cubes were tender and delicious. I added some chili flakes in oil. 

** I'd like to clarify that on my 2nd visit, I saw that the hand pulled clear noodle dish clearly (pun intended!) stated it is a soup. I completed glossed over that the first time. Overall, the experience was good and I totally plan to go again to explore the menu further. 

Update: I was back on Tues, Feb 18 (less than a week later) with good ol' Mr. Grizzly and my new favorite foodie partner, Baby Music to try some different menu items. The cold front moved in quickly with a brisk wind and dropped into the 20s! But we were determined to go. 

We decided to order big and just take leftovers home if it came to it. Baby Music looks forward to just that! We started with dumplings galore! The Dumpling sampler. 8 colorful, handmade dumplings with various filling. There were 2 of each of the following: green vegetable dumplings filled with bok choy, tofu, mushrooms, ginger, scallions and seasoning. Surprisingly, these were my faves! The red dumplings aka delicacy dumplings contained shrimp, scallop, fish and pork. Mr. Grizzly and I had these and both agreed they were ok but seemed a little fishy. The yellow dumplings were ground chicken with zucchini, ginger, scallions and seasoning and sounded good. Baby Music and Mr. Grizzly got to them first and concurred they were good. Finally, traditional ground pork dumplings with uncolored (white) wrapper were quite nice. All the dumplings had a yummy, handmade noodle wrapper. 

Next we ended up with 2 orders of juicy soup dumplings: shrimp with pork and shrimp, pork, & scallop. 10 pieces came in each order. It was the result of an ordering mishap, yet we persevered! Both contained a small "meatball" of ingredients floating in a pool of broth inside the loose, balloon-like handmade wrapper. Baby Music learned fast to eat them on a spoon and be prepared for very hot broth! Once she got the hang of it, she became extra fond of them. We liked them as well. We had soy sauce, black vinegar and chili flakes in oil to further season them. Baby Music loves fresh string beans Szechuan style, blistered in a wok with minced garlic, black bean, green onion and chili flakes. This interpretation was a bit saucier than others we've had, which I welcomed. They were very good, but not as flavor packed as I had hoped. Mr. Grizzly mentioned he usually doesn't care for string beans, but found these very good, and interesting. It was a big portion of the dish and Baby Music happily scooped up the leftovers to take home. 

It was then time to bring on the noodles! Up first, were a house favorite, Dan Dan noodles! Made with a peanutty sauce using crushed roasted peanuts, sesame oil and dried shrimp paste. I was delighted to try it as I'd never seen them offered with hand pulled noodles! And to further the intrigue, the noodles were about the thickness of spaghetti. We all liked the noodles themselves and the sauce too with different thoughts. I think I liked them best. I found the balance between peanut and sesame to be perfect and a touch of heat. Mr. Grizzly thought they were a little too sweet and saucy for his taste, butcdid enjoy them. Baby Music said they were good, but didn’t have much more to say and was ready for the next dish! 

Finally, the moment we (especially Baby Music) were waiting for: Hand pulled, stir fried noodles. We ordered a combo with pork, beef, chicken and shrimp and also just pork at the request of baby music. This type of hand drawn noodle dish has become pretty popular in restsurants around town so we had some expectations of what we were in for. Much to our surprise, these were completely different than others we've had. These noodles are wide, about an inch, like pappardelle. They said hand pulled, but were very uniform in width and thickness; thinner than others we had. Others we tried were extremely varied in thickness and width; rightly so when you see them swinging the long dough like a jump rope to stretch them. The stir fry had onions, garlic and light soy sauce with their respective meat tossed in. They were very good and the flavor and look reminded me of chow fun made with homemade noodles. The portions were big (particularly the sliced pork) and had a good amount of meat. Baby Music loved them and the big pile of leftovers she got to bring home. 

For dessert we had the steamed bao filled with "molten chocolate". Mr. Grizzly passed, as he was full and trying to limit sweet intake. Baby Music was a big fan and gladly snagged an extra. I liked mine as well. The soft, steamed bao with melted, creamy chocolate was very nice. There were 4 and were a perfect size, probably to prevent chocolate overload and scalding one's tongue! I liked the neutral tasting bun combined with chocolatey, slightly buttery, yet not too sweet filling. 

Overall we liked it and think lovers of Chinese food should go. Just beware of the prices. They have some items I usually only find at hole-in-the-wall, "more authentic" places but have been slightly Americanized. So it's mid point between the scale of adventurous and Americanized Chinese food. I believe there is a good market for this. The menu is huge and there are plenty of other items I want to try.

- Mr. Music review