Ask any of your friends in Edmonton where to go for good Chinese food and you’ll get a moan for an answer. The conversation usually ends with this consensus: for Canadians to get authentic Chinese food, we have to go to Vancouver or Montreal. If you’re really lucky, you’ll have been to China and had the pleasure of consuming it there. I’d love to offer you some hope in a new restaurant called the Ruby Dragon which opened in the space recently vacated by
 the Kai Asian Grille, a restaurant that offered a sushi smorgasbord served off the body of a naked woman. Guess that didn’t work out as well as they’d hoped.

If you adore (or dress like) the cast of Jersey Shore, if you are attracted by shooter bombs and $12 martinis to pair with lemon chicken, and if receiving a VIP 20% discount card leaves you filled with importance, then the Ruby Dragon is the place for you. Decore-wise, it’s very pretty. 

But what about the food? Well, the food is actually pretty good.
The Ruby Dragon offers the standards: spring rolls, green onion cakes, soups, (wonton, hot and sour), ginger beef, Cantonese chow mein, etc., but they do change things up by offering a modern twist on other classics: tangerine lemon chicken, lychee sweet and sour pork, coconut steamed rice served in fresh halved coconut shells (nice touch but a terribly small amount of rice), and several uncommon dishes like Beijing popcorn chicken, Rango crab dumplings and sambal beans (pictured below).

The young manager was quite proud that they employ someone who is strictly in charge of the deep fryer. So, while I appreciated their attention to detail, I felt it was more of a sentence than a position of honour for their chosen one. That being said, all of the deep fried items we had were deep fried to perfection.

Now hey, I have nothing against pretty young woman, martinis, and shooters, or zoning out to techno music every now and then…but if that’s what you’re going for, then you might not really care about the food.

On a final note, the young manager let us in on the Ruby Dragon’s future plans. Apparently they want to take this North American authentic yet unique style of Asian restaurant—pretty women serving drinks, Asian males serving Asian food—to Vancouver, Montreal and even…China. I wish them well.

Go for the Peking duck wraps, the paradise prawns and the garlic veggies, but pass on the deep fried milk.  My CBC Edmonton AM review of the Ruby Dragon can be heard here.