Uh oh! You’ve forgotten to make a reservation for a restaurant in EPCOT, and now you’re scrambling to find a decent place to enjoy a nice meal.

While it’s true that most restaurants around EPCOT can fill up quickly with reservations, especially during heavier seasons like when special dining packages might be offered, there are a few tried and true restaurants we like to turn to when we’re feeling a bit spontaneous. We recently set out for a meal at one of these options that has a bit of a divisive reputation for its quirky menu, and we’ve got to admit its newest offerings probably aren’t going to bring unity.

As you find yourself making your way around EPCOT’s World Showcase, you’ve probably stopped to marvel at this massive restaurant. It’s hard to ignore the Nine Dragons Restaurant in the China Pavilion.

But, this restaurant does offer more than meets the eye! The menu offers a mix of Cantonese, Mongolian, Szechuan, Hunan and Kiangche-style eats. Its a lovely restaurant to dine in, but it certainly seems to have created mixed reviews for itself within its most recent menu updates.

Atmosphere

This is a HUGE restaurant to walk up to, and it really looks very ornate with a commanding presence. We think it was also dealt a pretty sweet hand with its location as it’s very easily viewable by those who are strolling by around the World Showcase.

The outside doesn’t overdo the decor though, and there is a condensed version of the menu highlights featured outside for curious passersby.

As you walk in, you’ll find the host stand in the waiting room with its jade colored walls and columns. This is also where you’ll find the connecting door to the bathrooms for the restaurant (which are shared with the neighboring Lotus Blossom Café.

When it was our turn to be seated, we were welcomed and walked through the main dining room that was enveloped with the natural sunlight beaming into the windows on the backside of the restaurant. It was a little bit overcast this particular day, so it wasn’t too much sunlight to be blinded or annoy us during our meal, but just enough to really give it a nice touch to the lively dining area.

The restaurant’s dining rooms are sectioned off with a main room…

…a slimmer dining area divided by an interesting wall divider…

…and a back room with a more intimate feel.

Along the wall closest to where the Cast Members entered and exited from the kitchen you’ll find 9 small windows, each decorated with a single colorful glass dragon inside! These are very neat to look at, and we’d encourage you at some point to get up and see all of their tiny details up-close!

For as large of a space as the dining room is, it wasn’t very loud inside — even with the restaurant playing light orchestral music overhead.

Menu

When we were seated at our table, our server presented us with a double-sided paper menu. The front side features selections of appetizers, entrées, and the restaurant’s kids menu…

…while the back side features the non-alcoholic beverages, hot drinks, and wines.

Another smaller tabletop menu folded out in an A-frame to detail the dessert options on one side…

…along with the cocktail and beer selections on the opposite side.

But since we’d been following the latest menu updates to hit Disney World, we knew exactly what we planned to order.

Eats

We couldn’t wait to show you everything we ordered all at once, so here it is! We ended up opting for the Chicken Pot Stickers, the new Glazed Prawns with Pistachios, the also new Smoked Duck Fried Rice, and a Strawberry Crepe Cake to top it all off.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves — let’s start with our appetizer! The Chicken Pot Stickers are made of pan-fried chicken dumplings, cabbage, and dumpling sauce and will cost you $10.

The dumplings were well cooked which resulted in some of the outside being a bit crispier, for the most part the dumpling was chewy and soft enough to cut into easily without compromising the rest of the dumpling’s structure.

The overall flavor leaned a bit toward the bland side from the chewier chicken packed inside along with the crunch of the cabbage, but where this dish made up for it was in the drizzle of the tangy dumpling sauce with sesame seeds. While it wasn’t anything we’re raving about, it was a decent start to meal with something comfortable and familiar to our taste buds, we just wish they had kicked that flavor up another notch.

Next up, we tried a new menu item. The Glazed Prawns with Pistachios is made of lightly-fried glazed prawn, roasted pistachio, honey mustard sauce and this dish will cost you $32.

At first glance dish is BIG and those prawns aren’t your average scrawny shrimp either. They’re tossed in a glaze that’s very thin and a bit on the runny side, but its flavor is what intrigued us most about it. It reminded us of a honey mustard glaze. The prawns themselves are gigantic, and you get a hefty portion of them! They’re plump while still giving that hint of seafood brine when you dig into them, and with the glaze they’re really enjoyable.

This dish is also served with a side of white rice which comes in its own cup. While we could appreciate the separation for someone who’s not a fan of mixing their food flavors together, it felt a little weird separating them.

We would have ideally liked to have seen the glazed prawns sitting on a bed of white rice, rather than having to dip into the rice, then grab a prawn.

Overall though, we really liked this meal and the extra crunch of the crushed pistachios weren’t super helpful in terms of flavor but added a nice texture to the prawns.

The Smoked Duck Fried Rice was next up on our list of “new” to try! This dish is made of smoked ducked breast, egg fried rice, hoisin sauce and costs a whopping $35!

Yeah, it’s a huge bowl and honestly what struck us first is how this should have been listed as a shareable entree option. However, that fried rice smelled so good wafting in our direction, and we were so ready to try it out!

This one was a big disappointment for us. We realize it’s going to take a special kind of palate to appreciate duck in general but this gamey, smoked duck breast really didn’t please us. It was extra chewy, and there wasn’t a whole lot of hoisin sauce. We recommend asking for extra because without it, this meal feels dry and lacking in flavor. We’re sure there’s a target customer base for this dish, but on this day at least, we weren’t it.

To round out our meal, we chose the Strawberry Crepe Cake for dessert. This slice is made of layers of light and soft crepes with strawberry cream — it costs $13.

It’s on the tinier side for a $13 dessert, but we were hopeful that it would make up for it in flavor. As you take a bite into this piece of cake you can almost taste the ridges of each crepe layer that makes up the cake. It has a soft, sweet strawberry taste, and there’s a dollop of strawberry sauce spread on the side of the slice that we found ourselves dipping our fork into before grabbing a new bite.

Overall it was a unique dessert that we’re glad to have had the opportunity to try, but we also could see those who are texture-averse having a hard time enjoying it. But for us, at the end of the day, cake was cake and while it was dry in parts, the strawberry flavor kept things light enough that we didn’t mind.

Overall

Overall for this meal we walked away full but not entirely satisfied.

The newer dishes couldn’t have been more different from each other, and we’re not certain the combo of the two back to back worked for our tastebuds. We were also disappointed to hear that a few other menu offerings were retired to make way for these new eats and found the dessert menu pretty basic with just 3 options.

Nosh or Not?

We’d recommend you stop by for a meal at Nine Dragons Restaurant if…

• You’re feeling adventurous and want to try a few newer menu items. Several of the dishes we tried during this review were new to the menu so if you’re looking to switch your your typical EPCOT eats, this might be just the change you’re craving.
• You’re really into Chinese food. If you’re experiencing a hankering that only a Chinese dish can satisfy, then this is certainly the better China restaurant of the two in EPCOT to choose.
• You’re looking for a meal with a view. The backside of the restaurant features giant cascading windows large enough to see the World Showcase Lagoon through. This makes it a pretty popular restaurant for late evening meals and an even more popular option to request when dining here for a chance to view the nightly fireworks from your seat.

We wouldn’t recommend you visit Nine Dragons Restaurant if…

• Well…you’re just not into Chinese food. The menu here is entirely made of Chinese-inspired eats and drinks. If that doesn’t sound appealing you’ll have a hard time finding an alternative to eat here.
• You’re not a fan of gamey rice dishes. Yes, this restaurant does serve some gamer dishes, take the Smoked Duck Fried Rice we tried today for example. If you’re not into to meats that align with this taste, then you’ll probably end up with a dish that’s pretty basic that you could have paid a lot less for elsewhere.
• You’re BIG on variety. Now, don’t get us wrong here. Nine Dragons Restaurant certainly has variety to their menu but admittedly their menu offerings aren’t terribly extensive.

We’re constantly updating our views and trying out the newest snacks, eats, drinks and more around Disney World! Make sure you’re following along with us at Disney Food Blog for all the latest.

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What are you ordering on your next visit to Nine Dragons Restaurant? Tell us in the comments below!