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Lucky Dragon
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Good For:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Beer & Wine Only
- Noise Level:
- Average
- Ambience:
- Casual
- Has TV:
- No
- Caters:
- No
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
16 reviews for Lucky Dragon
Review Highlights
"The food is great and in absolutely huge portions."
(in 5 reviews)
"Definitely order the egg rolls."
(in 3 reviews)
"I'll be back for more next time i drive to portland."
(in 3 reviews)
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16 reviews in English
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Review from Erin O.
Camas, WA
4/23/2011
Okay, so the first time I was skeptical. Yes, I had heard the raving reviews from many people for a good year and I finally decided to try it out. Pull up - it's packed on a Monday evening, that's encouraging. There is a faded "100 Best Chinese Restaurants in US" sign hanging in the window. (I thought, how many of those signs did they sell for restaurants to buy?) It is clean and current in decor. They are busy but try hard to greet you upon entering. We were seated quickly and begain perusing the menu.
I knew I was going to order the sesame chicken based on reviews. We ordered Honey Walnut Shrimp, Snow Pea Chicken, Sesame Chicken, BBQ Pork, Egg Rolls and Pot Stickers. Okay, first off - WAYYYYY too much food for 4 people but everything reheated really well the next day. Everything that we ordered was fantastic and as much food as we ordered and had left over we still ordered another order of Sesame Chicken just to have leftovers the next day.
We live 40 minutes away so this is not a local restaurant for us. Although, I will admit we have driven up there probably too often and had friends from Oregon City join us which is about 1 hr 15 min for them and they never complain as the food is THAT good. I just wish they'd come down the 205 and be closer. Then again, if they did that - I'd eat too much Sesame Chicken and I'd have to spend an extra 40 min at the gym daily just to offset that and now I am not saving any time at all I would be in the hole.
It truly is great and I utterly disagree that this is Americanized Chinese Food. Yes, I am sure there are some dishes on there that are; however, I have eaten at many authentic deep in LA China Town restaurants (no english spoken or written) and this is just as fresh, homemade and authentic as dishes I had there. Do they have Shark Fin Soup? No - but who in Kalama would order that? Sure, they may be missing some signature eclectic dishes - but they obviously know their customer base and rock everything we have tried. mmmmmm, I feel a drive coming on tonight!
Side note, some people we took recently ordered more cantonese style dishes including the Egg Foo Young and they enjoyed theirs a lot. -
Review from Azrael C.
Beaverton, OR
Food is greasy, service sucks, didn't get a box, fortune from a fortune cookie from another patron stuck to the inside of my tea cup. Over all disgusted! I COULD NOT BELIEVE i was served a cup with the fortune stuck in it.
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Review from Lora R.
Hillsboro, OR
1/6/2012
Daughter and I stopped in (thx to yelp reviews)...glad we did! Great value and the chow mein tasted so fresh...best I have ever had. The rest of the food was great too! My posting date shows todays date, but I actually posted December 2010 (just didn't get posted for some reason at that time) =)
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Review from Amber F.
Kelso, WA
11/15/2011 1 Check-in Here
Very good Chinese food with huge portions and good prices. The staff is your typical rude asians, but the food makes up for that! Definitely order the egg rolls!!!
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Review from Randy H.
Kalama, WA
10/8/2011
My Favorite place to eat in Kalama. The food is good, prices are reasonable and you get huge portions. I have not found any of the dishes I did not like. I don't know how authentic the food is but it works for me. This place is always busy so others must feel the same way I do.
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Review from Jen K.
12/13/2010 2 Check-ins Here
We have family in the area and make regular visits to Kalama. When the weather is nice, we usually have a picnic along the water at the port. But when the weather turns foul, there are about three decent choices in town: Chinese, Mexican or Subway.
I am pretty sure Lucky Dragon is the best option in town. We've eaten here several times and have always been treated to nice service and good Americanized Chinese food. The portions are absolutely enormous, so don't feel you need to order one entree per adult. The shrimp fried rice is also surprisingly good.
The Egg Flower soup comes with kernels of corn for an unexpected crunch and a large bowl is really a giant tureen that could probably serve eight. If you are traveling with young ones who won't step out of their comfort zone, they also offer a small American menu.
I adore the area and even though the food pickings are slim, this is perfectly fine. -
Review from Jennifer L.
Portland, OR
9/6/2010 3 Check-ins Here
If you're out and about touring the site of where the Twilight high school is (and a bunch of other scenes) and you get really hungry from all your re-enactments and omg's then you should really check out the Lucky Dragon to refuel.
Everything you would want a Chinese restaurant to be! Good food, huge portions, reasonably priced, friendly wait staff, family owned and operated, authentic, clean and overall delicious.
In fact, you and your vampire-loving buddies could probably split a dinner if you wanted to save on cash. Great place to go to eat yummy food in a town with no other choice for Chinese food. You're in luck at Lucky Dragon! -
Review from Ian H.
Kalama, WA
5/13/2011
The food is great and in absolutely huge portions. Great service, very clean restaurant. The only drawback is that it seems a bit cramped to me (and its always packed). I bet they would fill a building twice that size.
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Review from Riss J.
12/23/2007 1 photo
Somewhere on the long, lonely patches of 'dead' zone down I-5, you will find the town of Kalama.
Ok, well, you probably won't find it...but if you are driving home from Portland and have to go to the bathroom around the time that other people you're with also decide they are hungry and you take the next exit that indicates there is food....well...that is how you will find Kalama.
It is a very funny little town, that appears to have been built directly onto the off/on ramp of I-5. It is a straight shot...off freeway...main drag...right back onto freeway.
Our choices were limited..to Subway, greasy spoon type place, and a Chinese restaraunt.
Live dangerously, we said, eat Chinese in redneck, cowtown, truck stop USA! woo!
Another funny quirk about the businesses in Kalama, is that there are two ways in to every place. ...The door that faced the freeway...and the one that faces the town up on the hill behind it.
It is very standard "American" Chinese food.
I had the tofu/vegetable stir fry over noodles and it was waaay better than I actually expected..and the portions were ridiculously large.
I still have over half of it in the fridge.
The other dishes at the table were a barbeque pork noodle dish, sweet and sour chicken and lo mein, an appetizer plate. Drinks were a bottle of some japanese beer i totally cant remember the name of at the moment (i had), a mini bottle of chardonnay (friend had), and a pepsi (son had). I'm not a big fan of beer, or haven't been, but am willing to risk it and try new things. It was better than i expected.
The food was prepared quickly and everything was steaming hot and freshly prepared. It was obvious some of the veggies were canned and such, but nothing you don't expect for where you are. (ie middle of freakin nowhere)
The prices were very reasonable, especially with the portion size, the service was excellent, and we really had a fun time.
Not bad, not bad at all.Listed in: I'm not Asian..., Welcome to BFE!
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Review from Rick W.
Vancouver, WA
6/5/2011
4 stars is my "very good" rating - I don't give out 5 unless a place is stellar. That said, I might (just might) put this place at 4.5...
Yeah, I was skeptical, too. Kalama? Chinese food - good chinese? Haa!
I was wrong. It's pretty darned good. Good enough that I will likely make the pilgrimage from Van-tucky a few times just to try other menu items. If Lucky Dragon is as consistent as the other reviews imply, it might well be some of the best that Southwest Washington has to offer.
As mentioned before, the portions are...huge. Make that HUGE! We ordered pot stickers (gigantic, and made in house), General Tsao's Chicken and Sesame Chicken. Now, we're two not-petite adults who were *hungry* when we came in...and ended up taking home more leftovers than we are usually served at an average place. You may say "quantity doesn't matter if the quality sucks", but wait - it doesn't suck!
Most of the Sesame Chicken-type things I've had in other places don't get it right - if the batter is crispy, the chicken is tough and so on. With this place, the batter is crisped just right, while the chicken is actually cooked properly...you aren't left thinking that the batter and oil are coating day-old leftovers. The General Tsao's Chicken has a good collection of textures - the peanuts and water chestnuts aren't overcooked to mush.
Complaints? We may have had a language barrier - the waitress seemed to act like she understood English well, but I think there was a bit of a gap in communication - when my wife told her we like things quite spicy, she said 'oh yes, is spicy' (or something like that). Well, it really wasn't very spicy. And, having specifically said we liked it spicy, wouldn't you think we would be offered a condiment tray, a dish of chili oil or something like that? I saw a large jar of Sriracha on a bus station, and that helped out...although somewhat the wrong flavor addition to the meal.
As mentioned above, I think we'll go back - in fact, given the portion sizes, we may make the haul up there several times and order a single menu item to split...affordable dining out! What a concept! -
Review from robert a.
Longview, WA
6/27/2011
I've had worse.
I've had better.
This is very standard Chinese American food, done maybe a little better than average. The 'famous' sesame chicken is very sweet with big batter-fried pieces of chicken - the batter is light and crispy instead of doughy and heavy so that's a plus. Mu shu pork wasn't right - not enough vegetables, mushroom flavor not strong enough, and silver dollar pancake-sized pieces of pork rather than properly julienned. Salt and pepper squid was a little tough and needed more salt but not bad. Hong Kong style noodles were unoffensive, could have used more noodles and less gravy. Noodles were cooked properly.
Servings are indeed very large, and the prices are good. Service was indifferent and slow.
Restaurant was jam-packed on a Monday night - word must be out?
Decor is average - clean and new but standard ABC (American Born Chinese).
Probably as good as anything between Chehalis and Vancouver, but don't drive up from Portland or Seattle expecting big city authentic Chinese food. Perfectly serviceable and we would go back. -
Review from Shawn D.
Vancouver, WA
4/1/2010
We bought a HUGE box of take out for a family get together. Oh my gosh, it was some of the best Chinese in SW Washington.
We loved the spring rolls, egg rolls, sesame chicken, sub gum chicken and vegetables. All of it was fantastic. Even though we had to drive back to Woodland to eat it.
We live in Vancouver, but we'd make the 25 minute trip to eat here. It IS that good. -
Review from Morena T.
Olympia, WA
11/17/2007
We were on our way back from a very long trip, driving back to Olympia, Wa on I-5. My husband and I were getting hungry for lunch but didn't know what we wanted. I kept trying to pick something from the road signs off I-5. We saw the sign for mexican food and said 'eh, what the hell, let's have Mexican food." But as we looked for parking, I spotted some Chinese lanterns and the sign for Lucky Dragon. Immediately, I thought it might just be another buffet style restaurant but I thought I'd give it a chance. My husband was hesitant but we went in anyway. I saw my husband looking at other people's plates and heard him say, "That looks good."
The inside looked brand new, booths and tables for larger parties available. We were seated immediately and were handed menus. The front of the menu said something like, "Schezuan, Catonese, Mandarin Chinese Food." I was excited and had high hopes! The menu had plenty of items to choose from. Since we arrived during the lunch hour, we were able to choose something from the specials menu. The specials included a dish of my choice from the 20 something selections, egg flower soup or hot & sour soup, crab won tons, pork fried rice and chow mein. I ordered the shrimp with lobster sauce for my lunch special. My husband ordered General's Chicken.
Our tea arrived shortly and so did our soups. Delicious, hot and creamy! Soon after we were done with our soups, our lunch plates arrived. The servings were huge but everything looked hot and delicious. The shrimp with lobster sauce is served in a bowl. The velvety creamy sauce with shrimp comes with peas, mushroom, corn, green onions and garlic. The rice was a little on the dry side but the chow mein was nicely seasoned and stir fried. The fried won tons were crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside. My husband enjoyed his lunch too. He said he burned the roof of his mouth because he was trying to chow down on the hot crispy & sweet generals chicken. :) I gave him my second won ton since it seemed that he enjoyed it the most.
I asked the waitress (who I think might be the owner along with her husband) how old the restaurant was and she said, "5 months." I suggested she open a restaurant closer to Olympia. ;) Maybe I should have begged. Anyway, if I have to drive 1.5 hrs to Kalama for some good Chinese food I will! -
Review from M W.
Redmond, WA
7/22/2010
After a long day of hiking at Mt. St Helens, we randomly discovered this restaurant in Kalama because I desperately needed to find a bathroom.
Although the exterior makes it seem that Lucky Dragon caters only to a western clientele, the asian-food-for-asian-tastes were delicious! fresh ingredients, good quantity and very tasty. I'll be back for more next time i drive to portland. the Owner is also very friendly, speaks mandarin and Cantonese and the place is quite clean.
all things considered i'm giving it a 5 star rating. its the best highway-side chinese food i've had. -
Review from Jon N.
Kalama, WA
6/25/2011
This place is literally the best Chinese food I've ever had! The portions are crazy, the price is great, service is fast and friendly, and the food is fantastic.
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Review from Jennifer P.
Woodland, WA
6/17/2010
Excellent food, huge portions, nice atmosphere! An unexpected gem in Kalama. Try the wonton soup, amazing!
