Dragon Bowl: Build-your-own Chinese bowl in Burnaby, Richmond, Vancouver

With today’s economy, it feels impossible to find meals for under $20 🫠. But recently, I found a fast and easy spot for lunch or dinner.

We were invited to check out Dragon Bowl, an affordable build-your-own bowl Chinese food restaurant with 4 locations across the Lower Mainland. Bowls start at $9 and bubble tea starts at $5.

In this blog post, I will review the Metrotown location and everything we ate for 2 people.

Dragon Bowl
4929 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC V5H 2E5

The vibe

The Metrotown location is quite small and more of a grab-and-go or takeout type of spot, but there are a few 2-seater tables if you want to dine in the restaurant.

Inside is pretty bright and clean. There is a front counter for ordering and a menu that is easy to order from. You build a bowl and choose your base (rice, salad, etc), main, and 3 side dishes.

Food and drinks review

Disclaimer: We were invited here as part of an Instagram collab, so everything featured in this post was free. I have included prices for transparency. Prices are listed in CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.

Side dishes (complimentary)

With every bowl, you get a complimentary choice of 3 sides. There were 6 to choose from on the day we went and since we ordered 2 bowls, we got to try all of them.

There were 3 spicy and 3 non-spicy sides:

• Fungus (spicy)
• Cabbage (spicy)
• Potato (spicy)
• Corn
• Bean sprouts
• Brocoli

My favourites were the 3 spicy ones (they were not spicy at all) and the corn!

Bowl 1: Shrimp with dragon sauce and white rice ($15 large + $2 shrimp + $5 green tea)

One of their most popular combinations is the shrimp with dragon sauce.

What is dragon sauce? 🤔 Don’t worry – I wondered the same thing. Dragon sauce here is like a soy garlic sauce and it was actually a really nice pairing with the shrimp (+$2). Shrimp were on the larger side and paired well with white rice or noodles (+$1.50).

The large bowl had a decent amount of food. I wonder if I got a smaller bowl, would it simply be less base/rice.

Bowl 2: Curry beef brisket and brown rice ($15 large + $3 brisket + $1 brown rice + $5 black tea)

My husband ordered the currey beef brisket, which is another popular pairing.

This is a classic Cantonese dish and we were actually quite impressed with how tender the beef brisket and potato was 👍. The curry flavour was what we expected, except we made a mistake ordering the brown rice (white rice would be better with it).

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

We had a fast and easy meal at Dragon Bowl’s Metrotown location. The staff were very helpful and friendly as this was our first time and we weren’t sure how to customize our bowl. She explained it like a poke bowl but for Chinese food, and I think that is a great description for what Dragon Bowl’s business model is.

The food was healthy and good quality and super reasonable for the price. We really liked both the shrimp with dragon sauce and the curry beef brisket and think it is worth the additional few dollar upgrades.

They also have different promotions happening all the time so you can get different sides like boiled eggs, soups, different bubble tea drinks, etc. Again, I think they are more of a takeout place and the food will travel well. Check it out if you are looking for a budget friendly meal!

Sincerely, Loewe