Tuesday, December 14, 2010. Golden Dragon, Now On Magazine Street. Everything I did today took longer than usual. Most maddening was a traffic jam on Causeway at I-10, bad enough that I took the old back-street route from the days when I brought Jude to Christian Brothers every morning. I still would have made it to the radio show on time, except that my card for the parking garage--borrowed by MA yesterday--was still in her possession. But I can take refuge behind a brand-new windshields and brake tag (only $258!), which at least removes the threat of being pulled over and ticketed for that.
I finally made it to the Golden Dragon. It's a little hard to see, but now I know that it's a couple of doors uptown from Joey K's. The Golden Dragon opened in a golden age for New Orleans Chinese restaurants in 1975. That was the second location of three successive restaurants run by Andy Tsai. Andy can take credit for causing the most sweeping changes in New Orleans Chinese restaurant history. He brought Peking duck, Szechuan food, moo-shu everything, and hot and sour soup to New Orleans eaters, who previously had to make do with Cantonese food only.
Sometime in the 1980s Jung--a young woman who goes only by her first name--took over the Golden Dragon. She'd had a few restaurants before, and a few since. The Golden Dragon was always good, but it was in a run-down location on the second floor, and business had dwindled. Earlier this year she moved into the former Raw, a failed pan-Asian café. It's a great location. Uptown is deficient in Chinese restaurants. And that stretch of Magazine Street is now a restaurant row rivaling the French Quarter in its number of eateries.
The new place looked good, and so did Jung. She didn't recognize me right away--it's been years since I've seen her. She was one of the earliest sponsors on my radio show, in the late 1980s. She had a unique way of saying "Hi!" at the beginning of her spots. She still says it that way. I can't explain why it sticks in my head, but it does.
The new Golden Dragon has two menus. One is standard, if more up to date than most. The other has dishes listed in Chinese and English. This is becoming very hip, not so much because it appeals to ethnic Chinese (although it does), but because certain diners automatically get excited by such exotica. (Most of them are just past college, and are ever looking for evidence of their wisdom.) In fact, there was not a lot on the Chinese menu that wasn't also on the main menu. A few items did stand out, though--notably the pork intestine.
I started with hot and sour soup, because it was cold outside. Good stuff, thick and peppery and made with interesting mushrooms and other good ingredients. For the entree, Ma-Po tofu. I remember well the first time I had this. It was at the home of Jim and Mary Glassman, the co-founders of the Figaro weekly newspaper, where I spent the first decade of my early journalistic career. I'd never heard of bean curd before, but after tasting it, I developed a liking for it.
The Ma-Po version involved ground pork, a great deal of red pepper, and a sprinkling of a seasoning combination that looks like Creole seasoning but doesn't taste like it. Very spicy, which I like. This version, unfortunately, was also very salty--far too salty for a guy with hypertension, who gets a pressure headache just from putting a little too much salt on fries or popcorn. I could eat the tofu but not the sauce, which took a lot out of the dish.
On the way out, Jung told me that her new place is very busy, that we ought to do an Eat Club in her private second-floor room, that this was a good move. And that Andy Tsai was still alive and living in the New Orleans area. I didn't know that.
Golden Dragon. Garden District: 3009 Magazine St. 504-891-8280.
