Fat Dragon Bar-B-Q

Fat Dragon Bar-B-Q

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Fat Dragon Bar-B-Q | $$-$$$
(Downtown Eastside)
556 Powell Street, Vancouver
(604) 558-0880
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Claim to Fame
Southern barbeque dishes with Asian flavours. 

Plus
Daily specials, imaginative menu and drinks, warm and comfortable setting, friendly staff.

Minus
Removed from the downtown core, some items over-priced.

Quick Picks
I highly recommend the smoky sambal long beans and daily drink specials.

This installment of date night involved a single long-stemmed red rose and a trip to the Downtown Eastside.  On a Friday night, Fat Dragon was hardly filled to half-capacity and its dinner rush never materialized. We found free parking in front of the restaurant (after 6PM) and strolled into the newest member of the Campagnolo family. Despite its drab surroundings,  its interior was a pleasant oasis of soft lights and tasteful decor.

Warm lighting

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The varied and innovative menu was easy to navigate. Our first server was very informative. We requested a different table, and did not realize we would be switching servers as well. Our second server was pleasant, but less knowledgeable. We ordered the specials that our first server told us about. I also opted for one of the two non-alcoholic beverages on special, a strawberry ginger beer.  It was a refreshing summer drink and very reminiscent of something that I could not quite put my finger on! The ginger taste was not very apparent, but produced a warm tingle in the back of my mouth. We tried the ribs on special ($13), the green papaya salad ($8), a beef deckle and a squid bao bun ($2.50 each), the thick cut pork belly ($12), along with a side of sambal long beans ($5) and some jasmine rice ($4). Our dishes came out in a different order than I expected. Our green papaya salad came out first and was delicious. It was quickly followed by the pork belly and the ribs, rather than the bite-sized bao buns. We prompted our server for the jasmine rice to accompany our dishes. We dug into the pork belly and ribs. The bao buns arrived, followed by the long beans shortly after.

A tasty mess
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I enjoyed the pork belly, but I did not enjoy the accompanying piece of white bread in balsamic vinegar. Perhaps our server should have explained how these items were meant to complement each other, but I ended up surrendering my piece of somewhat soggy bread to my date. The jasmine rice was also too sticky for my liking. I prefer my ribs to be juicier and meatier, but MM was content to gnaw away at the BBQ ribs. The smokiness in the beef bao bun was more apparent than in the squid bao bun. Both were good, but I found the portions too small to adequately savour each bun's flavours and textures. A word of warning, the menu inaccurately listed the squid bao bun with coriander, rather than cilantro. It was piled on top of the squid and easy to pick out. We decided to skip dessert, though I was delighted to learn that the soft serve ice cream made in-house for the day was Thai basil.