Dragon Chinese Restaurant Nutritional Information

The Dragon Chinese Restaurants have one important factor in their favor: an emphasis on vegetables. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about 26 percent of adults consumed three or more servings of vegetables a day, even though the recommended amount is four to five servings. Many Dragon Chinese Restaurant meals contain several types of vegetables. The nutritional value of these meals does depend on other factors as well.

Basic Menu Items

Several independent restaurants call themselves "Dragon Chinese Restaurant," including restaurants in Los Angele and New York. Though menus vary, certain foods are typically found on their menus. Fried rice is served as an accompaniment or main entree with a type of meat or fish. Plain fried rice contains about 228 calories per cup, with 43 g of carbohydrates and just over 6 g of protein. Add chicken to the rice, and the calorie count goes up to 333 calories.

Vegetable Dishes

Stir-fry entrees provide a variety of vegetables, including those with excellent health benefits such as broccoli. Whether you add chicken, pork or another protein to your stir-fry does not affect the calories appreciably. A 1 cup serving of stir-fry pork with vegetables and rice contains about 245 calories. Your healthiest menu choices will be those with plenty of vegetables.

Sauces and Extras

Sauces are one of the dietary pitfalls on the Dragon Chinese Restaurants' menus. Sauces such as sweet and sour or orange sauce typically contain high amounts of sugar. Other sauces such as lobster sauce and hot garlic sauce also contain high amounts of sodium. While soy sauce only contains 8 calories per tablespoon, it also contains 902 mg of sodium, almost half of the recommended 2,300 mg per day.

Allergen Information

Those with food sensitivities or allergies may have difficulty finding suitable dishes at the Dragon Chinese Restaurants. Most brands of soy sauce contain wheat, making any dish prepared with it unsafe for celiac disease patients. Several dishes such as almond chicken or cashew shrimp contain nuts. The presence of allergens also means an increased risk of cross-contamination even with allergen-safe foods.

Fat Content

Fat content is another area of concern. Many items on the menu are fried -- fried dumplings, fried wontons and eggrolls -- adding unnecessary fat. A single tbsp. of fat contains 120 calories, making fried dishes high in calories. Any menu item with fried in its name is sure to be a high-calorie, high-fat food. Unfortunately, other classic menu choices are also dietary disasters. Kung pao chicken, for example, contains a whopping 779 calories, with nearly half of those calories from fat.