Restaurant: Nine Dragons
Location: Epcot – China Pavillion
Meal Type: Dinner
Atmosphere
Aside from the ornate gold roof with ornamentations, the exterior of the building is rather simple. The front of the restaurant is lined with large windows that frame views of the
World Showcase Lagoon. The entrance is located on the side of the building, just past the octagonal windows.
The interior is absolutely stunning. You’ll find partitions throughout the dining room with
intricate wood carvings that include, what else, dragons! The ceiling is also adorned with gold dragons and colorful Chinese lanterns. But, the décorations you don’t want to miss seeing are the exquisite
glass dragons. The main feature wall holds a display that showcases these unique glass dragons, which served as inspiration for the restaurant’s name. The interior atmosphere is so immersive, it really feels like you are visiting China.
Food
The
menu here features traditional Chinese options, as well as Cantonese, Mongolian, Szechuan, Hunan and Kiangche-style cuisines.
Pot Stickers
We don’t generally order appetizers here, but decided to go ahead and try the
Pot Stickers on this trip. The order consisted of four sautéed pork and vegetable dumplings served with
cilantro-soy sauce. The plain dumplings were very tasty, but they were exceptionally good when combined with the dipping sauce! Even though I think $6.98 is a little pricey for four pot stickers, they were simply fantastic and definitely something we’d order again.
Chicken Consomme with Pork Dumplings
We went ahead and ordered a bowl of
Chicken Consomme as an appetizer for my son to try and fulfill his request for Wonton soup. Unfortunately, he didn’t enjoy the pork dumplings, refused to eat a second bite, and slid the bowl over to my place setting. No problem there! The dumplings seemed a bit too chewy, but the flavor was nice. Because of the texture, I’d say they were just “ok”. The consommé broth, however, is absolutely fabulous! Even though the broth was good, this is not something we’re likely to order again.
Kid’s Sweet & Sour Chicken
The kids both requested plain chicken with some sweet & sour sauce on the side (instead of the menu-listed honey chicken option). They each received a nice mix of
chicken nuggets,
egg fried rice,
carrots, and
broccoli served on an adorable Mickey shaped plate. The food must have been excellent, because they both gobbled it up, broccoli and all!
General Tso’s Chicken
This isn’t listed on the menu as a main entrée, but our wonderful server actually suggested doing a
General Tso’s Chicken as a choice for my husband for the sweet and spicy combination. We have a couple of local restaurants in town that make this dish very well, but both of us agree that the sauce here at Nine Dragons is superior. As always, the chicken was tender and the fried rice was yummy – so, my husband had no complaints!
Canton Pepper Beef
I generally go with the Kung Pao Chicken or the Sweet-and-Sour Pork with spinach noodles, but this time I decided to try out the
Canton Pepper Beef entrée. This is a mix of stir-fried beef, onions, and bell peppers in a savory sauce with a side of rice. The beef was extremely tender, the veggies had a slight crunch, and the sauce was delicious. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it now, so I’m guessing it will be pretty difficult for me to order anything but this dish again!
Adding It Up
I didn’t notice until after our trip home that were charged for two of the Chicken Consume soups priced at $4.98 each, so this meal should have been a bit less. The Nine Dragons Restaurant does accept
Tables in Wonderland, so this was our breakdown for the meal with a 20% discount.
Overall Impression
My only complaint is that there can be a lot of “street traffic” that comes in and out using the lobby restrooms here – and there are only a couple of stalls. This visit was on a very crowded Food & Wine festival day, so the line to use the women’s restroom in the restaurant stretched pretty long due to so many of the non-restaurant guests walking in instead of visiting the open restroom next door in Norway.
Otherwise, the Nine Dragons is a fabulous restaurant choice in Epcot! The décor is gorgeous and the views of the lagoon are great if you are seated near the front windows. Nine Dragons is one of our preferred dining venues here and definitely a place we’ll be visiting again