Black Dragon’s combo of soul food and Chinese American takeout hits hard, in between some misses

Just over 30 years ago, when Kurt Evans was 8 years old, he watched a movie called The Last Dragon. It’s a campy karate flick about a gifted young Black martial arts student named Leroy Green (also known as “Bruce Leeroy”) who must face down Sho’Nuff, a bully who famously threatens to make him “kiss my Converse!” Leroy seeks to rise to the level of the legendary Last Dragon and concentrate enough mystical energy into his hands to achieve “The Glow” and save the day. With a Berry Gordy-produced soundtrack behind him and a talent for catching bullets between his teeth, Leroy’s chances are promising.

This cult classic also roundhouse-kicked its way so deep into young Evans’ imagination it has paid off for Philly diners three decades later, twice over. The pizzeria owned by Leroy’s parents, Daddy Green’s Pizza, was one of the sparks that inspired Down North Pizza, says Evans, who helped launch the Detroit-style pizza shop in Strawberry Mansion four years ago with Muhammad Abdul-Hadi and chef Michael Carter. (Evans is no longer involved.)

Its more recent dividend is Evans’ latest restaurant, Black Dragon, which opened this past summer and combines Black American cuisine with Chinese American takeout. “When I thought about a fusion concept, [that movie] is what I thought of — the Last Dragon to come through the inner city," Evans said. “But make it a Black Dragon.”

There are an estimated 300-plus Chinese takeout restaurants in Philadelphia, according to Dan Tsao, publisher of the Metro Chinese Weekly newspaper and co-owner of EMei restaurant, who says that number has been in decline since the pandemic due to labor shortages and as the immigrant families who usually run these small businesses shift into other sectors.

Black Dragon is explicitly intended to fill that growing void, as those takeout restaurants have long been a staple in the city’s predominantly Black neighborhoods, including the parts of Southwest and West Philly where Evans grew up, where they were often one of the few independently owned restaurants serving fast, affordable, and fresh-cooked food. Chinese takeout was also Evans’ first opportunity to experience someone else’s culture through food, and he ate so much of it growing up, he says, that ultimately “it was part of my culture, too.”

Beyond those early inspirations, Evans has been professionally building toward Black Dragon for more than a decade. In 2012, he won a culinary competition with an egg roll stuffed with collard greens and cheese instead of the typical white cabbage. He was offered the chance to take over an empty storefront that was previously a Chinese takeout, an opportunity he declined to pursue — for a broad array of others, including opening at his first place in 2017, Route 23, followed by stints at South Jazz Kitchen, Booker’s, and involvement in social justice initiatives like Everybody Eats Philly and his End Mass Incarceration (EMI) dinner series. He continues to fight for criminal justice reform, giving first-look hires to formerly incarcerated people and at-risk youth.

When Evans last year finally did take over a former “Chinese store,” as they’re often called, it was coincidentally in a space at 53rd and Rodman formerly called Golden Dragon, a spot that he used to frequent years ago when he worked in food service at what was then Mercy Hospital. His winning egg roll — the collard-stuffed one, served with mango-chili sauce — has become one of the most popular fixtures on his menu exploring the possibilities of Black American Chinese cuisine. My favorite of the many other egg rolls here, the Soul Roll, tucks those collards alongside mac and cheese and chunks of barbecue chicken for what tastes like an entire picnic inside a deep-fried tube.

Egg rolls have long since crossed the line from retro icon of Americanized Chinese food into a creative canvas for the wider American public, much in the same way pizza, burritos, sushi, and kimchi have. That’s especially true in Philadelphia, where for the past two decades, you’ve been as likely to find an egg roll stuffed with cheesesteak at a hotel bar or chain restaurant as you are to encounter one at a Chinese restaurant.

Philly’s Black-owned restaurant scene has been particularly fertile ground for exploring the boundaries of the form, from the sweet chili salmon egg rolls at Rock-N-Rolls to the Buffalo chicken spring rolls at Star Fusion Express. The fusion of Caribbean and Chinese cuisine has a history that spans nearly two centuries, since the British brought Chinese laborers to Jamaica in the mid-19th century following the abolition of slavery — one that sees modern reverberations in dishes like the jerk fried General Tso’s chicken fried rice at Southwest Philly’s Kingston 11.

Still, no local restaurant has immersed itself so completely in recasting the genre through the lens of Black culture as Black Dragon, from the soul food-infused wok works to the proverbs inside its custom fortune cookies. (”You like it, I love it”; “If ya friends jump off a bridge, you gonna do it too??”) General Tso has been replaced here by General Roscoe, for instance, in tribute to the first Black four-star Army general, Roscoe Robinson Jr. Robinson’s St. Louis roots inspire the tangy barbecue sauce built on house stock, cider vinegar, and spice that delivers a decisive sweet and spicy punch for Evans' riff on the classic dish.

The base of all Evans' fried rice variations is tinted red with house-dehydrated tomato powder and jollof rice seasoning shaded with curry, ginger, and thyme before the optional chunks of boneless fried chicken, bountiful seafood, or green threads of collards are mixed in. Dan Dan noodles have been reworked as “Man Man,” a common Philly term of endearment, the usual pork swapped out for ground halal lamb, a nod to Black Muslim culture that results in one of the menu’s most flavorful dishes, thanks to a spicy peanut sauce lit with collard-sizzled chili oil.

The Rangoon dumplings harbor the whiff of a Maryland crab boil in the cheesy stuffings tucked inside their pyramid-shaped deep-fried skins, which are still crispy if you eat them on-site at one of the eight stools that line the corner window counter. Of course, with takeout in the name, maintaining a travel-worthy crunch on the many fried items is a challenge Black Dragon needs to meet. But it’s still struggling while Evans continues to search for the right packaging.

The anticipation that preceded Black Dragon’s opening this summer was so intense that this tiny kitchen was clearly overwhelmed in its opening months, resulting in noticeably low ratings on user forums that cited excessively long waits (over two hours?), running out of food early, and dishes that lacked a consistent punch.

I’m glad I gave Black Dragon a few months to gather itself and resolve those issues while business leveled off to a more sustainable clip. Since then, Evans said he has taught the cooks to more diligently taste and season as they go. Over the course of my three visits from December through January, the turnaround times were reasonable, while home delivery took under an hour from ordering to drop-off in Center City. And with chef Pierre Sims (a longtime Barbuzzo vet) directing the line, the dishes in my takeout containers consistently radiated “The Glow” of bold and satisfying flavors.

With Evans now engaging in collaborations with some of the city’s top Asian restaurateurs, including Han Chiang of Han Dynasty and Ellen Yin’s Wonton Project for a forthcoming Lunar New Year dim sum brunch, Black Dragon is showing its potential to be an evolving cross-cultural dialogue, an aspiration that is also reflected in its small dining area: Evans has brightened the old space by replacing the plexiglass barrier beside the cashier and adding inspirational neon messages and vintage pictures depicting Black and Asian cooperation in fighting for civil rights.

Black Dragon’s menu is already making a unique statement. Anything with jerked oxtail is superb. This kitchen braises, smokes, and picks nearly 750 pounds of tails a week, producing tender, unctuous meat scented with Jamaican pimento, spice, and thyme. Over a half pound goes into a hefty order of lo mein, with both sweet peppers and extra chiles to perk up that rich gravy. Oxtail is also my favorite stuffing for the Rangoon dumplings, and the oxtail version of beef and broccoli is the best revamp of a blah classic I could ever imagine. Black Dragon’s Magnolia Project Beef stir-fry is solid, but the quick-cooked flank steak lacked the telltale smoky singe of proper wok hei.

Among the most compelling dishes are those that draw on the Louisiana influences of Evans’ Shreveport-born grandmother, Carlessie Herring. That includes the rusty orange crawfish étouffée gravy ladled over the Egg Wu Young, a Wu-Tang Clan tribute omelet set over curried cabbage and fried rice. The seafood and sausage-filled gumbo lo mein is also spot-on flavorwise, with the added bonus of an entire crab stuffed inside. The roux-less gumbo thickened with okra and filé powder is so viscous, however, it would have benefited from being thinned just a bit more for use as a sauce.

The size and sweetness of Black Dragon’s shrimp were also impressive, and they made a nice upgrade to chicken with the Roscoe sauce, or encrusted with candied brittle (supposedly pecans, but we got peanuts on our order). I especially loved shrimp delicately fried inside a lemon pepper batter drizzled with honey.

The last one is best if you eat it on-site or nearby, like all the fried items, which suffered in delivery. That will soon be much easier if Evans finally realizes his vision to create a full-service sit-down version of Black Dragon, hopefully somewhere in Center City this year. One dish I’ll especially be looking forward to is a dessert that really doesn’t travel well: deep-fried wontons filled with peach cobbler. I picked one up and took a bite, and it crackled as my teeth broke through its sheer crust and gave way to a hot center of stewed peaches kissed with cinnamon. Then came the swirls of caramel sauce, crushed shortbread cookies, and poufs of whipped cream. I reached for another. Then another, and then ... K’boom! K’pow!

It was a knockout dumpling. Kurt Evans and his Black Dragon team had, in that moment, harnessed “The Glow, Dessert Edition.”

5260 Rodman St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19143, 267-292-2905 ; blackdragontakeout.com

Open daily, noon to 9 p.m.

Entrees, $11.75-$25.75

Wheelchair accessible.

Menu highlights: oxtail Rangoon; collard and soul rolls; collard and seafood fried rice; Man Man noodles; Egg Wu Young; oxtail lo mein; gumbo lo mein; oxtail and broccoli; General Roscoe’s chicken (or shrimp); lemon pepper shrimp; sweet potato doughnuts; peach cobbler wontons.