Dragonfly is a great place to enjoy a fancier dinner downtown, especially if you are a sushi lover like me!
It does get very crowded so you definitely want to make a reservation if you want to avoid waiting too long. They do have some outside seating, which is good since indoors the tables are pretty close together. Dragonfly opens only at dinnertime starting at 5pm. They do not offer delivery, unfortunately, but you can do curbside pickup.
Menu items are pricey, but the presentation, service, and quality of food items are pretty good. It feels fancy so it would be a good spot to take a date or for a night out with friends.
The Sautéed Butter Edamame ($7) was really good with bonito (Katsuobushi) flakes fluttering on top of a slightly spicy salted bed of edamame. It’s a good appetizer before the meal and vegetarian!
As for vegetarian items, they have salads, veggie dumplings, miso cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and other seasonal veggies.
Dragonfly’s rolls tend to be on the heavier side, filled and topped with a lot of things. The good thing is that their rolls are filling! Since I like raw fish, I love a simpler, clean roll like the Big Boss ($15), which comes with tuna, salmon, yellowtail, avocado, scallions, and a spicy mayo sauce drizzled on top.
The Smoky Dragon ($15) is good if you like a smokier flavor with tuna and krab, as it has salmon krab delight, red onion, tempera flakes, cucumber, avocado, and torched tuna on top. It is drizzled with a sour lemon zest and red sauce.
Love it crunchy? Definitely get The Bomb ($12) which is filled with tuna, tempera shrimp, krab delight, avocado, and topped with a bunch of tempera flakes for an added crunch. It has a drizzling of spicy sauce for extra flavor.
If you want rolls with cooked meat, you would like the Black Dragon ($15), which gives you a flavor explosion. It has the crunch of the tempera soft shell krab, krab delight, cream cheese, fresh cucumber, scallions, avocado, smoked eel, and a drizzle of spicy mayo sauce and eel sauce. It definitely gave a burst of sweet, savory, spicy all mixed together. I usually do not get rolls with cream cheese, but this one was not very overpowering.
Not a fan of sushi?
They also have the Japanese Blue Crab Fried Rice ($15), which was a very flavorful concoction of rice, crab meat, garlic, topped with sliced shiso, and nori.
The Short Rib Miso Ramen ($14) is different from traditional pork ramen as it has a saltier miso pork broth. It had a hefty chunk of soft braised short rib and thicker ramen noodles, topped with bean sprouts, corn, cabbage, menma, nori, scallions, and a poached egg.
I definitely left full and happy to support this local Asian owned business. Try out Dragonfly for your next night out in downtown Gainesville!
Community Foodwaves 