by Andrew Morrison | A weekend of dry runs with friends and family have owners Tom Doughty, Robert Belcham, and Ted Anderson all set to open their much anticipated Fat Dragon at 566 Powell St. on the DTES this week. The new restaurant will specialize in Chinese BBQ in a way that we haven’t seen before, as nearly all the items will enjoy a lick of southern spice with a proper bar lending a pairing hand with five original cocktails or 4×4 wines by the glass (plus a reserve list). I took a look yesterday afternoon and there was much to like, including a kaffir lime soft serve ice cream that’ll be making it onto their opening menu this Thursday (so good). Here’s the PR and all of our photos from yesterday afternoon:

Accomplished restaurateurs, Tom Doughty & Robert Belcham of Campagnolo and Campagnolo ROMA, are excited to partner with longtime employee and first time restaurant owner, Ted Anderson, to proudly announce the opening of Fat Dragon Bar-B-Q on Thursday April 5, 2012. Fat Dragon, where Far East Asian flavours collide with American Southern barbecue methods, is the most casual restaurant this team has so far created. Open seven days a week, from 11am – late, Fat Dragon offers both dine-in and take-out options with street parking available at 566 Powell Street. “We have always wanted to open a barbeque joint.” says Anderson, ”We want guests to be able to enjoy a few cocktails and snacks without getting fatigued on heavy barbeque, so we incorporated Asian flavours and techniques to lighten the load.”

The Fat Dragon kitchen team will be led by Chef de Cuisine Adam Johnson in serving delicious food, first seasoned with Asian spices and herbs, then slow smoked over local fruit woods. These techniques will be applied to the best local cuts of pork, beef, lamb, fresh seafood, vegetables, and tofu. “We have a great love for different types of food from all over Asia,” says Ted Anderson. “This is our homage to the many, great, late-night dinners of noodles, barbequed pork and stir fried crab that we have enjoyed in our travels.”

The team at Bricault Design has created a stripped down, open space reminiscent of a 1920’s opium den. Exposed brick and wooden beams are complemented by a silk entry way, resembling the interior of a Chinese lantern, and a dragon-skin inspired ceiling installation made of wooden scales. The focal point of the room is an 18 ft bar housing a variety of local craft brews and imported Asian beers, a small selection of wines by the glass, and an assortment of cocktails derived from classic recipes rejuvenated with smoke and Asian flavours.

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As you may have heard, restaurateurs Tom Doughty and Robert Belcham have sold their first restaurant, Refuel (formerly Fuel). It had been on the market for quite some time, and we expect that the move will allow them to concentrate on the opening of Fat Dragon on the DTES, which could open as soon as April 1st (the duo also own the two Campagnolos). Current Top Chef Canada competitor Trevor Bird approached Belcham and Doughty three weeks ago, made an offer, and a deal was made. The 28 year old, a newcomer to Vancouver, announced last night that he will be opening a new joint in Refuel’s place called “Fable”. It will be his first time as a restaurant owner, and as far as we’re aware, his first crack at being an executive chef (he currently operates a catering company). We hope to bring you more details as they’re received, but right now we’re wondering which restaurant will have the best buttermilk fried chicken in town once Refuel shutters for good on March 24th…sniff. The good news is that all the staff there have already found places of employment at Belcham and Doughty’s other restaurants.

by Andrew Morrison | Robert Belcham and Tom Doughty, the owner/sommelier duo behind the two Campagnolo restaurants, are opening a Chinese BBQ restaurant called Fat Dragon in the heart of the Downtown Eastside (566 Powell).

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Joining them as a first time owner is Ted Anderson, long the chef at Refuel and now at Campagnolo Roma out on East Hastings (always nice to see that happen). The concept is interesting – Chinese food with a Southern US “lick of smoke” – and I’m sure they’ll nail it (the menu reads fantastic, and we’ll get to that soon), but let’s be honest; the thing that will define The Fat Dragon won’t be its food, but rather its location, at least in its first couple of years.

If you thought Salt Tasting Room in Blood Alley was daring back in the day, or really any location remotely worthy of the word in recent years, dinner at Fat Dragon will be – for some – like going to the moon. It’s this section of the DTES around Oppenheimer Park that has been (and still is) considered a bridge too far by restaurateurs, even hungry first-timers with very few funds. There is a community here, and a strong one at that, but it has to face a daily gnarliness that no other neighbourhood in the city has to contend with. I think for most Vancouverites, the idea of dining out hereabouts is repellent, and yet the restaurant, due in under two months, will probably do very well indeed.

A year or two ago I posited in a magazine article that new restaurant development in these parts was on its way. I likened the advance to that of an invading force employing a pincer movement around the most seemingly prohibitive blocks of the DTES. The concentration of the attack was building up eastward pressure from Cambie through to Carrall in Gastown, where dozens of new establishments had opened since 2006. The left pincer was heading down Powell, Alexander, and Cordova (Big Lou’s, Nicli Antica, Cadeaux, etc), while the right pincer was pushing up Keefer through Chinatown to hit Main around Strathcona (The Union, The Keefer, Brixton, etc). The two hooking flanks, I wrote, had already connected on East Hastings at Au Petit Chavignol (2009) and The Waldorf Hotel (2010), effectively enveloping the whole of the DTES with a ring of new eateries (for the military historians out there, remember the Battles of Marathon, Cannae, and The Falaise Gap).

Thus surrounded, the main concentration, what the eminent strategist Von Clauswitz would call the “schwerpunkt”, has been getting ready to burst eastward on Hastings proper for the past year (witness the comings of Wildebeest, Save On Meats, Bitter, Acme Cafe, etc). All that remains to be conquered – to put it indelicately – are the blocks within the ring, at the center of which lies Fat Dragon, with its 12 SROs above.

Fat Dragon owners Robert Belcham, Tom Doughty, and Ted Anderson at Campagnolo Roma on East Hastings

But why assume it will do well? For starters, the folks behind Campagnolo are no slouches. They’ve opened four small businesses in the past five years, with all but one of them opening where (mostly) others were afraid to. 566 Powell may be where angels still fear to tread, but no matter if the West Side is too shit scared to make the trip at first, others will come (I live within the ring, and suspect many of my neighbours are drooling as they read this). Those restaurants that make up the pincers and the schwerpunkt have revealed that much to be true, as not a single one of them has flopped.

Secondly, it’s a solid food concept. I’ve seen the menu, and it has everything from smoked I-San style pork hot links with cucumber and coriander relish to marinated and smoked crispy tofu Bao buns with bean sprout kimchi and holy basil (I won’t reveal anything else just yet, save to say we’ll also see whole fish and pig’s head). Chef Adam Johnson (ex-Pourhouse, Campagnolo) will have a smoker in house, and I imagine he’ll take good advantage of all the markets that are just around the corner (and let’s not forget that the kitchen tag-team of Anderson/Belcham snared Robert the 2009 Chef of the Year title).

In the end, however, it’s all about supply and demand. There are shockingly few restaurants in Vancouver that hybridize Chinese cuisine, pairing it successfully with booze and leaning large on aesthetics, and I think demand for more is considerably high (just try and get a table at Bao Bei during the dinner rush).

Third, the design is going to be pretty awesome. Marc Bricault is on the case (think Vij’s, the recent West redux, Thierry, Campagnolo, Refuel), and he’s making it look like a 1920′s style opium den with a lot of reclaimed fir, grass cloth, and design motifs that gel with the food concept. The old space (previously “The Bakery”, where one could freely buy weed) is long and wide, and will seat some 50 people, with an additional 13 seats at a central bar that is some 18ft wide. The tables are butcher block-style and over-sized to accommodate many dishes (everything is served family style), while the adjoining chairs are wooden and not a little rickety, which again dovetails nicely with the theme. The building dates from just prior to the First World War, and so has solid, fantastic-looking brick bones. Its high, beautifully decrepit ceilings will be criss-crossed with string, from which bulbs will hang, market-style. The clincher? A neon sign – in the form of a fat dragon, natch – will brighten the gloomy frontage. Take a look at what I saw last night…

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Spaghetti Carbonara is a staple dish that a lot of restaurants and home cooks fuck up by going easy on the pepper, loading it with cream instead of egg and substituting bacon for guanciale. The new Campagnolo ROMA on East Hastings nails it.

We’ve invited the new Campagnolo ROMA on East Hastings to join our GOODS section as a recommended local restaurant that is well worth checking out. They’re now proud members of Scout, and as such we’ll be publishing their news front and center and hosting a page for them on our list of independent goodnesses. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support of Scout, and hope you’ll take this chance to get to know them a little better…

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