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REVIEW: What I Wish I Knew Before Trying 9 Menu Items at This Epic Universe Restaurant


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So we’ve been visiting Epic Universe as much as we can during Universal Orlando Annual Passholder early previews, mostly just to eat at all the restaurants (hey, it’s what we do!). You’ll find a good variety of quick-service and table-service restaurants in Universal Orlando’s new theme park.

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Celestial Park

But you know us. We want to make sure you know which restaurants are worth your time and which aren’t. So this time, we’re headed over to The Blue Dragon Pan-Asian Restaurant in Celestial Park to see if it lives up to its colorful and epic name. 

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Atmosphere

You’ll find The Blue Dragon Pan-Asian Restaurant in Celestial Park, and it’s pretty easy to find because there’s, well, there’s a gigantic blue dragon at its entrance.

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There’s a blue dragon out front

Once you are inside, you’ll see something that looks a lot like an extravagant version of your local hometown Chinese restaurant. There are lots of red and gold colors with Asian decorative items.

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Inside

The theming is pretty much on point with a pagoda at the end of the room.

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The pagoda

There’s plenty of seating available, including tables and chairs.

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Lots of places to sit

The theme is a bustling Asian courtyard, so you’ll find a massive “tree” overhead in part of the dining area.

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Check out the golden tree

The screens are painted in an Asian style, lending more to the overall theme.

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Screen

Table settings include plates, glasses, and real cloth napkins with chopsticks.

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Table setting

But enough about the restaurant — what’s on the menu here?!

Menu

The food here is all inspired by Asian flavors and includes some small plates like Double “Fried” Korean Wings and Sweet and Sour Calamari. You can also order Dim Sum, as well as dishes featuring Noodles and Rice. Big plates include Crispy Fried Snapper and Beef and Broccoli. You can also order various teas to go with your meal.

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The menu

A variety of beverages are available, including a selection of Sake, cocktails, mocktails, beer, and wine.

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Beverages

And now, onto the main event — the food!

Eats

We started with the Pork Soup Dumplings made with seasoned ground pork and dragon sauce for $16. The dumplings themselves are very sticky and tender, with a bit of chew to them. Inside, you get that gush of soup when you bite into it plus that first taste of the seasoned pork. You get five dumplings total.

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Pork soup dumplings

The pork is fairly salty and rich, but it’s…well, it’s just fine. These aren’t anything we haven’t had at our local Asian restaurant. The dumplings are served with a chili oil sauce, just like some of the other things we ordered.

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They’re…fine

We also ordered the Snowflake Potstickers, which are lacy crust potstickers with dragon sauce — yep, that dragon sauce is the chili oil sauce again. For $18, you get a unique presentation of potstickers. The lacy fried batter gives them an interesting look, but the potstickers themselves are nothing to write home about. You can get this kind of potstickers anywhere.

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Snowflake potstickers

The meat is tender and juicy, but again, it’s nothing special. That’s starting to be the theme here with everything we’ve tried. But, hey, at least they look cool?

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It looks cool

The Tonktosu Ramen is made with ramen noodles, rich pork broth, chashu pork, tare egg, shiitake mushrooms, togarashi oil for $29. We LOVE ramen, so we were super excited about this bowl. It had all the good stuff in it, the bok choy, the pork belly, the egg…PERFECT. HOWEVER, again, the presentation was top-notch, but the flavor just wasn’t there.

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Tonkotsu Ramen

The broth is a little TOO light…it needed more richness. The ingredients are…fine…but we had high expectations here and they were not met.

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Didn’t meet our expectations, though

Okay, let’s try something else. So we got the Double Fried “Korean” Wings for $16, which are Korean-style gochujang flavored ultra-crunchy wings. Now this kind of made up for other things we ordered. They’re crispy and crunchy…you can hear that crunch when you bite into them. They’re coated in a gochujang sauce that is robust and sweet, but then that spice kicks in about mid-bite and makes your tongue all tingly. Not only do these have a lot of breading, there’s also a lot of meat on the inside, too. This is probably going to be our favorite thing we ordered here.

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Double Fried “Korean” Wings

Finally, for the savory items, we got the Crispy Orange Chicken for $28. This is crispy chicken with blood orange sweet & sour sauce, snow peas, and white rice. The chicken is crispy, as described, but again, something was missing. Some flavor just wasn’t there to make these great. The sauce is fine, the texture of the chicken is fine, but it needed MORE. The snap peas are fine, as is the rice, but here’s the thing: we think these aren’t even as good as orange chicken from Panda Express. There, we said it.

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Crispy Orange Chicken

Okay, well, surely dessert won’t let us down, will it? We chose the Banana Napoleon, made with miso butterscotch bananas, 5-spice wontons, vanilla ice cream for $12. Okay, so we changed our mind and THIS is the best thing we’ve eaten here. It’s got a crispiness with thick cream with the perfect amount of sweetness and banana flavor. It’s like an elevated version of banana pudding, actually. So if you love banana pudding, this is the dessert for you.

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Banana Napoleon

This is probably the one thing we’d revisit this restaurant for.

Drinks

To drink, we picked up the Chengdu Dream for $18, made with Ming River Sichuan Baiju, DeKuyper blue curaçao, BG Reynolds falernum, pineapple juice, white grapefruit juice, golden sugar rim with pineapple fronds and an edible orchid. We thought this drink might pack a real punch, but it’s actually mellow and very refreshing. It’s got a nice sweet chill flavor with no tanginess. The alcohol taste is also super light. The presentation is also INCREDIBLE — we love the dragon who looks like he’s just relaxing in the ice. This could be the perfect summer drink.

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Chengdu Dream

We thought we’d try one of the mocktails, too. The Golden Dragon is made with cream of coconut, lime juice, turmeric syrup, pineapple juice, jalapeño essence, and ground ginger for $11. This might be one of the most interesting mocktails we’ve ever had. It starts out with a strong citrusy flavor, but then on the back end, you get that jalapeño and ginger punching you in the back of your throat. Honestly? We’re still not entirely sure how we feel about it, but it’s certainly different.

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Golden Dragon

Finally, we had to get tea! The Dragon Stardust Tea, which is caffeine-free, is a jade-green infusion of lemongrass, ginger, stevia, pineapple, butterfly pea blossom, and a blend of other herbs and spices for $11. This tea is made exclusively for this restaurant. They bring it in a pot, let it steep for a bit, and then they pour it for you.

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It arrives in a pot

This tea has a variety of flavors, although the primary flavor we got was the lemongrass, followed by a hint of ginger, as well as the other spices. We really didn’t get much of the pineapple flavor. It’s also a pretty jade green color.

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Dragon Stardust Tea

We enjoyed this tea a lot, and it paired well with our meal.

Nosh or Not

You should visit The Blue Dragon if..

  • You have picky eaters in your party. Honestly, the food here is so comparable to most Asian restaurants that there’s probably something here for everyone.
  • You want a full table service meal experience. This is a table service restaurant, so it’s a chance to take a break from the parks, sit down for a little while, and get served food and drinks.
  • You want drinks and dessert. Honestly, the stand-out here was the dessert we had, plus there are some interesting drinks to choose from.

You should skip the Blue Dragon if…

  • You want something unique. As we mentioned, there’s not much here that isn’t available at most Asian restaurants, so you’re not going to find anything that’s going to wow the foodie in you.
  • You want something fast. This is a table service restaurant, so dining here will take more time than what you’d get if you ordered quick service food.
  • You don’t like Asian food. If Asian food isn’t your thing, you’re probably not going to find anything here to please you. There’s a huge variety of food in Epic Universe, after all, so you’re sure to find something you like elsewhere.

Overall

So the one thing that keeps coming up about this restaurant is that so much of the food we tried seemed to have something missing and needed more flavor. Overall, the best word we can describe most of what we ordered here is “dull.” We did like the wings and banana napoleon, but we wouldn’t make a special trip to this restaurant just for those things. Okay, maybe we would for that dessert…

In the meantime, we’ll be on the lookout for more restaurant updates from Epic Universe and beyond. Make sure you stay tuned to the Disney Food Blog for the latest theme park news and more!

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Have you eaten at this Disney World restaurant before? Tell us in the comments!

The post REVIEW: What I Wish I Knew Before Trying 9 Menu Items at This Epic Universe Restaurant first appeared on the disney food blog.

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