An offbeat urban treat

Sue's Korean vegan buffet can't be beat

10/21/2009 10:00 PM

By MELISSA ALBERT
Contributing Reporter

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Dining
At 7 p.m. on a recent Thursday, the only customer at Dragonlady Lounge was reading a book by the window. It was the first really cold evening of autumn, and rain slashed the streets outside. But by 8 p.m., the place was hopping with hungry diners. They came to see bartender Sue, and they came for the kimchi.

A diminutive woman who alternates between brusque and gracious, Sue serves up a homemade buffet of vegan Korean cuisine every Thursday and Friday night. Dinner is served whenever she’s done cooking it, and patrons are invited to help themselves from trays laid out in the bar’s kitchen.

It’s easy to feel like part of an oversized, oddly hip family piling in to the small space, where Sue dishes out plates of sticky rice while exhorting diners to obey the “Don’t waste food” sign. But in the irresistible quest to try everything, it’s very hard not to waste food.

Piles of fried tofu, soy-slicked green beans, pickled vegetables and cold stir-fried shoots and sprouts are hard to pass up, as are the addictive dumplings and egg rolls Sue pulls out of the fryer. She’s less than forthcoming about ingredients (What’s on the pea shoots? “Hot sauce.” What’s in the dumplings? “All vegetables!”), but it’s enough to know that everything is fresh, relatively good for you — and surprisingly cheap at $11.25 for the buffet.

The cold room warms up once the jukebox begins to play. Under a beautiful pressed-tin ceiling, strings of fairy lights and Chinese paper globes hang along the bar, as does a mysterious Mike Ditka shrine, comforting in its apparent lack of irony.

Sue works the room as the people eat, stopping by tables to make sure everything tastes good, laying a guilt trip on anyone who can’t finish their vegetables. If customers aren’t undone by overindulgence in pickled broccoli, Sue’s happy to finish the job with a signature Dragon Slayer shot. A syrupy, cherry-tinged brew, its stickiness brings to mind the SoCo and Dr. Pepper cocktails beloved of college girls and Janis Joplin.

While Dragonlady has no doubt served time as a holding pen for people drinking out the wait for a heavy metal burger at Kuma’s, just around the corner, Sue is quick to point out that business is on the rise, thanks to the devoted Yelp community. And it should be. Dragonlady is an offbeat urban treat: a homemade dinner served up by a good cook and eaten in the company of strangers.


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