This post is about Butter Boy, but for one of the few times on this blog, it actually isn’t about me trying to kill him with tasty bovine buttery goodness, or jerking his chain for personal amusement.

Nope. Not this time.

So what exactly does my pal and ride-share have as personal plans for tonight? He’s going to have dinner at a vegan restaurant, apparently because one of his friends is always on the lookout to do something different.

A vegan restaurant. And willingly. As a social outing.

I’ll pause just to say “hmm…”, but that certainly falls into “different” all right.

I had a case of the willies when I read where he was going, because personally that ranks right up there with Amway meetings.

I’m not truly opposed to vegetarianism, except perhaps in the cases of expectant mothers and parents raising young children ([rant] dumba$$! you are so putting the kids at risk! [/rant]). I fully grasp and comprehend the underlying concepts of vegetarianism as it pertains to health, lifestyle choice and religion, and I’m fine with this: Buddhism for example espouses vegetarianism and there are entire (and rather complex) vegetarian cuisine offshoots from both Chinese and Japanese culinary traditions.

Veganism is of course an extreme form of vegetarianism. From the point of view of being a lifestyle choice by an informed adult, I’m also okay as it’s really the free-will choice of that individual.

I guess my main problem with veganism is that many professed vegans (along with many regular vegetarians) I’ve met over the years are poseurs who have espoused the choice either to further political views (e.g. PETA, Jediists, NDP) or to mask compulsive dieting and personal issues with body image perception. When I hear someone say that (s)he is vegan while eating honey because it’s a plant product, I tend to call shennanigans: honey doesn’t magically grow in flowers as it’s a product of animal (bee) activity and if you eat it, you support the enslavement of bees for your own base pleasures.

And while I personally enjoy eating honey, I do have to write more about this, including some scribbling about a recent trip to Paris and Berlin, partially because of one dinner shepherded by a waiter named “Fabian Boom” (how cool a name is that?), and partially because of interesting conversations with a team member who so happens to be a raw vegan. That was a fascinating discourse in and of itself, but in the end I do believe she associates me with the second and third coming of the AntiChr*st.

And Butter Boy? Well, I’ll at least get to find out how things went when we meet up next week. But in the meanwhile, I’ll point him to the following:

The best part of the Florida road trip was actually shooting the breeze with Mark, but that wasn’t in Gainesville. Dragonfly however, is in Gainesville and will soon be in Orlando (home of the Mouse). So what is it, and why did I keep blah-blah’ing about it during my recent road trip (here, here and here) to the Sunshine State? Because.

Because it’s not the Clown and it’s not the Chihuahua: it’s a place that provided comfortable meals when my team bailed on me as Hurricane Tropica Storm Fay smacked the state way back in August 2008, and it’s a place that saved me from a second straight night of McNuggets just minutes before their slated closing. Same core staff that I remembered from 2008, Yōjinbō (用心棒) playing on their banks of flat screens (it may be the same film, but one really can’t top Akira Kurosawa), and short ribs. Oh yes, the short ribs. I remember them well from 2008 and they were one of the two reasons why I wanted to revisit. The other reason was the circumstance of my visit: there are other restaurants that have opened in Gainesville but as I had to concentrate on the day job, I didn’t want to mess around and elected to go with as close to a sure bet that I could find.

Dragonfly touts itself as a “modern” izakaya (居酒屋), calling itself ”a sophisticated twist on the traditional Japanese tapas style dining; serving sushi, sashimi and robatayaki with a full sake bar in an informal lounge atmosphere.” Well, it’s definitely not an izakaya – the room is huge, there’s a massive kitchen brigade and I never could get an accurate count of how many servers work the room. It is however a hip eatery with wood, glass and metal (no funky orange leather dominatrix accents like DNA). They execute their menu really well, the itamae manning the counter have great knife skills and know when to chat and when to leave you alone, and service is pretty attentive.

I actually planned to eat at Dragonfly for all four nights I had available in Gainesville, but thanks to a flight hiccup in IAD and some serious catch-up on another day, it was whittled down to two nights perched at the bar looking at the kitchen action.

Dinner

An izakaya outing can have dishes that are raw, grilled, simmered, fried item and steamed, in addition to soup and tsukemono. Being alone meant that I wasn’t going to attempt this, and as there were some menu items that I wouldn’t order to begin with, it required a little bit of smart menu planning. In writing up this post, I realized that their menu lists “hiyashimono” as cold items and yakimono (焼き物) for hot items. Problem is, hiyashimono doesn’t really mean anything (it is someone’s name) while yakimono refers to the method a dish is prepared, which in this case is a “grilled or pan-fried item” (which isn’t necessarily served hot). Anyway, nitpicky and doesn’t detract at all from my dining selections.

Dinner One: right before closing time. Short time, focused eating.

Ama ebi : sweet shrimp made up as nigiri and served with ponzu and served with the heads deep-fried; I ate the heads first for that warm crispy umami deliciousness and followed up later in the meal with the nigiri

Short ribs : my yakimono (grilled) pick, it’s their take on Korean galbi and my primary reason for wanting to return to Dragonfly. They mention that this cut is “extremely marbled”, but what it really is is extremely delicious. Grilled medium-rare with the sweetness of the marinade offset by the kimchee, if I could have successfully eaten the bones I would have.

Seafood claypot : not a traditional simmered dish, but a nice dashi, nice egg noodles, nice clam, but marred by frozen New Zealand mussel and Alaskan king crab. King crab in Florida? This would have been a real winner if it had stuck with more local seafood.

Gohan (御飯) : every meal needs rice; this bowl’s framed with galbi.

Dinner Two: my last available night in Gainesville. Lots more time than dinner one, and a whole lot more food. I’d say that I was over by two dishes, but I was having fun with the deliciousness.

Ama ebi : just because and just as delicious, but the plating was nicer the first go-around. Bonus: the heads were full of eggs.

Short ribs : why the h*ll not as it’s their best hot dish and what I likd most. The first plating was nicer, but this serving was grilled rare and came to the counter smoking hot and with plenty of kimchee. Mmm… should have gotten a second order.

Hamachi kama : I chanced this one since it’s not always available but I was glad I did. Two big pieces of yellowtail collar, but unlike other places, these weren’t done as shioyaki but were sprinkled with sansho, grilled and then served with a mirin and shoyu-based sauce. I really liked this really rich-tasting dish.

Cobra kai :  I wound up ordering this for two reasons – they ran out of saba and the counterman asked if I wanted to try a special roll they were testing out that night. I wasn’t too sure, but the itamae’s suggestion for this Italian-Japanese fusion item was spot on as he served up a tuna roll wrapped in nori and salmon belly topped with basil, tobiko and balsamic vinegar reduction.

Hiyayakko (冷奴) : I wanted a cold dish as the temperature in Gainesville had started to rise, and I figured that chilled tofu in dashi would be a nice counterpoint to the remaining items. This tofu appears to have been pressed and perhaps frozen because texturally it’s not silken or firm tofu; that’s fine; it’s a common technique to eliminate the excess water. Normally this is served in dashi flavored with shoyu and a little yuzu, however this one was served with ponzu, the sharpness of which was a little off-putting since it made the tofu taste more like a salad item than anything else.

Gohan (御飯) : every meal needs rice; I actually ordered brown rice but that was already vinegared into sushi-meshi so back to straight white rice

Wine

They have wine, which I didn’t really pay attention to. They also have a *lot* of cocktails (including several blue ones) which I also didn’t pay attention to. It’s an izakaya, meaning beer, shōchū or sake are the orders of the day. An izakaya is also a dining and drinking experience where one goes to share food and drink with friends but I was running solo so I was drinking alone. Not a whole lot of time, so I limited my selections to Nihonshu (日本酒) bottlings.

Dinner One was too close to closing time and I wanted something refreshing to sort of make parts of the day go away: Yaegaki “Many Fences” junmai-shu (純米酒), a nigorizake (濁り酒) from Hyogo Prefecture, fit that bill. Since it’s a nigorizake, I expected a certain sweetness. The Yaegaki showed lychee and melon on nose, with a predominantly melon flavor with hints of rice and a light slightly acidic finish. Paired really well with the galbi.

I had more time for Dinner Two so I elected to go with the Hananomai junmai ginjō from Shizuoka Prefecture. Rich rice and floral aromas with bright sweet flavor that ends with a finish that reminds me of watermelons and cucumbers. Excellent with the cobra kai and the hamachi-kama. Hananomai comes in 300 mL bottles and I kinda wished I either had a dining companion or at least Ronny’s liver because I can’t easily fininsh 300 mL of sake even with food. Hananomai means “dance of the flowers” and I think it refers to the kick it gives at the end: it certainly was  delicious but I spent some quality time walking around the Hampton Inn to clear my head (I would have tried to do the dance of the flowers but I probably would have been arrested).

Photos

[View with PicLens]

Impressions

I had two good meals. I had two good meals which finished long days and which put me in the mood to keep going at it. I have to mention Shawn (aka “Head Lamp”) and Jamie, who were watching over my two evenings – they both were attentive but still unobtrusive and ensured that my evenings went smoothly. I think Jamie spent more time than she normally would pouring my sake (as in every refill), but I think that came from one of the two co-owners giving her the signal to do it. Great service team nonetheless.

So… what I really liked: the galbi (d-uh) and cobra kai were really two standouts. I could have eaten several portions of the ribs. The cobra kai was a revelation – I didn’t think that balsamic reduction and basil would work that well with the roll but the combination with the salmon belly and the tuna paired very well

What I didn’t like: the seafood claypot and the hiya yakko. The tofu was a clear miss though solely because of the sauce it was being served with; I liked the texture and flavor of the tofu, I liked the nori and the katsuobushi, but I did not like it served with ponzu. The claypot itself was generally good but was marred by the addition of two frozen seafood items (New Zealand mussel and Alaskan king crab leg): swap those out for something local and this dish is a winner, leave them in and they pull the dish down. I don’t know why they felt they needed those two items as the rest of this dish was very tasty.

What I didn’t have which I did in 2008: miso-marinated sablefish (gindara no saikyo yaki). I elected not to order this primarily because I already make this quite frequently and I wanted to concentrate on other things.

What I could have had if I had eaten a third meal: “grilled spears” (yaki skewers), sunomono (because it’s got conch in it), beef lettuce wrap (I think this is their take on a beef sangchu ssäm). In hindsight, the one thing I do miss not having is indeed this beef lettuce wrap (oh well, I’ll live vicariously through others).

What I would like to see change if I ever have a chance to go back: perhaps a Korean chili paste instead of sriracha for the galbi (really minor) and steamed brown rice, but having a plate of mixed tsukemono is about the only thing missing which would really round things out nicely. 

About the only thing that’s hard to do at Dragonfly is solo dining: because they’re doing the small plate sharing format and serve whenever something is ready, everything literally arrives within minutes of each other. The hamachi-kama has the warning “this item will take a while to cook” but in reality that translated to “this item arrives five minutes after everthing else will”. When there are several people at the table, there’s no issue since the plates are polished off fairly quickly, but solo, everything hot gets cold well before any one plate is finished. I had already tried just ordering one plate at a time and asking them to frame things in paired sequence, but that doesn’t work too well, partially because the brigade is trained to fire the dish as soon as the order’s called.

Anyway, I have a great dining memory with Dragonfly. Since I’ll have more of a chance going to Orlando than returning to Gator Country, I’m hoping their new outpost will be well-received and do just as well as the parent.