A Dragonfly at Dragonfly, Shaped Like a Dragonfly

A few weeks ago, a friend and I met up for dinner at Dragonfly Lounge in Ohio City. I've heard mixed reviews about the food and atmosphere, and was looking forward to checking it out for myself. Recently, well-known chef Marlin Kaplan (One Walnut, Luxe, Roseangel) also became involved with Dragonfly and re-vamped their menu.

I immediately like the interior of the restaurant. It had a great "lounge" vibe with the modern furniture, lighting, and bar decor, but also had exposed brick (which I love) and sunlight streaming in through the front windows.

Luckily, my friend and I almost always just "share" our meal by splitting a couple of small plates. We decided to start with the Crispy Lobster Pot Stickers with avocado, pomelo, and Indonesian sweet soy ($12.5).The pot stickers were decent, but the lobster flavor wasn't as prominent as I think we both had hoped. Next up was the Dragonfly sushi roll with crab, bok choy, cucumber, avocado, mango mustard, and char su glaze ($13.5).As you can (sort of) see, they playfully arranged the sushi roll to look like a dragonfly on the plate. Bonus points here! I always enjoy a good sushi roll, and this was pretty good. Everything tasted fresh, and I liked the crispy outer coating. But I did wish that the roll was slightly thinner. It was impossible to eat in one bite, and cutting the pieces resulted in the ingredients spilling out.

Last up, we split the Dragonfly Paella with mussels, calamari, snapper, shrimp, and forbidden rice in a coconut curry broth ($22).I appreciated that they split the dish for us (so what you see is only a half portion) for no additional fee. This was my favorite dish of the evening- packed with curry and coconut flavors and fresh seafood. I don't usually enjoy steamed fish in dishes such as this, but even the fish was prepared well and complimented the overall dish. I was happy to end on this note.

So, overall we enjoyed the atmosphere and food- with some dishes being better than others. Several more on the menu sounded tempting, and I always love it when sushi is on the menu! I think we'll both be back, and I'll even bring "R" this time. He gets a little salty when I have these fun dining adventures without him. Hehehe.

Dragonfly Lounge
1859 West 25th Street
Cleveland, OH 44113
(216) 696-7774