Oakland restaurant Lion Dance Cafe is at the top of its game

When you’ve only experienced a dish in a takeout box, there's a distinct joy in seeing it on a plate for the first time — like coming across an old friend in a snappy tux.

Take the pandan nian gao ($13), a chewy mochi-like cake, from Oakland's Lion Dance Cafe. The last time I tried the treat, it was served cold in a compostable box. It was already good, but now, served warm with salty whipped coconut cream, it is magnificent. The temperature change makes the crackly crust more pronounced against a gooey center that's like stretchy fudge. It's one of many dishes that showcase the restaurant's soaring confidence in the midst of change.

Lion Dance Cafe, a vegan restaurant with Singaporean, Chinese and Italian influences, opened in 2020 after growing a following as a pop-up (formerly known as S+M Vegan) for several years. Given its arrival during the height of the pandemic, Lion Dance took a cautious approach to service, packaging food only for takeout and eventually adding a parklet. This year marked a major change: It became a full-service restaurant focused on wine and small plates. Dining inside the restaurant today, encountering familiar dishes presented in new ways, it's easy to fall in love all over again.

Chefs and owners C-Y Chia and Shane Stanbridge cook with heart and spunk. The duo's incalculable talent proves that cooking with meat can be a crutch; frankly, if all vegan food was this good, we might never crave meat again. With the restaurant's prominent use of fresh herbs, compounding spice and innovative ferments, Lion Dance feels nothing short of revolutionary.

One of the strongest dishes that remains on the menu is the mushroom goreng ($16). The craggy fried fungi are encased in a sturdy shell; draped in fried curry leaves and sliced shallots; and then rest over calamansi sambal, a gingery chile paste brightened with the Filipino citrus. It's as flavorful as it is hellishly spicy. Although these beauties were already phenomenal in takeout form, they have an even deeper crunch now fresh out of the fryer.

You’ll never find boring vegetables here. One visit, I tried a compelling seasonal green salad ($14), driven by the chefs’ love for the genre, that featured butter lettuce, fried shallots, Thai and Italian basil, and a luscious dressing boosted with charred scallion oil. It reached those creamy qualities of a Caesar, except it was loaded with umami and herby pungency. The asparagus ($14) and gailan (Chinese broccoli, $14), on the other hand, employed grill smoke excellently.

The menu has a great deal of snacks and small plates, all of which you should try. The prawn-less crackers ($6), a vegan take on shrimp chips seasoned with coriander, and the citrusy peanuts ($6) are fantastic preludes to the entrees. As are the potato chips ($11.50) served with a tangy, allium-flavored dip. The bowl of beans ($16), stiffened with chiles and garnished with ricotta made from soy milk, provides fiery comfort.

In its previous iteration, one of the restaurant's most sought-after items was its shaobing sandwich, in part for the sesame-speckled sourdough inspired by the Chinese flatbread. Sandwiches are no longer on the menu but the stunning bread lives on with the shaobing service ($16). It arrives hot out of the oven with grainy mustard, cucumber slices and a spreadable mushroom rendang, Lion Dance's take on the long-stewed Indonesian dish that's common in Singapore. (A warning: This item is among the first to sell out.)

The sensational laksa ($25), another Singaporean specialty and a survivor from the takeout days, has become one of the restaurant's trademark dishes. It's a potent brew of rice noodles, silky coconut broth and mushrooms garnished with chile crisp and sambal. The layered spice and gentle sweetness fuse together effortlessly; while a traditional laksa relies on seafood to develop depth of flavor, Lion Dance turns to different kinds of seaweed to heighten the umami.

Aside from the laksa, the other entrees are pastas. One visit was a pistachio cavatelli ($24), another was an herbaceous Taucheo e pepe ($24), a riff on cacio e pepe using fermented soybeans. Both had al dente pasta, but the flavors felt restrained in comparison to the other dishes.

The beverage menu has expanded with wine and house-made drinks. The wines lean natural and come from underrepresented faces in the industry: queer folks and women of color. It's apparent that the restaurant puts extra effort into the zero- and low-ABV cocktails, offering exciting options to those who don't imbibe. Recent highlights included the breezy Jade Jungle ($15), made with pandan and lime leaf, and the thick Nectar Milk Tea ($8), which drew sweetness from in-season stone fruits. The restaurant's DIY decor reflects Chia and Stanbridge's personalities. Dragon heads, bunnies and paper lanterns are placed throughout the red-walled dining room; you might recognize the blue chairs if you went to public school. The restaurant is small, seating roughly 20 inside and 10 outside, but the owners make good use of it, shifting the tables diagonally to make more space.

Despite Lion Dance's popularity, the restaurant's survival remains a calculated balancing act. The owners realized that when the restaurant relied on takeout, it didn't matter how many laksas they sold because each bowl cost just $16. Ultimately, they needed to charge more for the food to stay afloat, which is why they transitioned to a wine bar format.

But the dining room has created a new set of challenges. One of which was relearning the intricacies of hospitality. Stanbridge, who last worked as a server in his 20s, had to relearn how to properly carry plates once again.

Nonetheless, as an outsider looking in, I think this form of Lion Dance is at the top of its game. It feels like a fly new restaurant.

Lion Dance Cafe

380 17th St., Oakland. https://www.liondancecafe.com

Hours: 5-8:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday.

Accessibility: All on the first floor. Outdoor seating available.

Noise level: Mild to moderate. Mild outside.

What to order: Pandan cake ($13), mushroom goreng ($16), green salad ($14), asparagus ($14), gailan ($14), prawn-less crackers ($6), peanuts ($6), shaobing service ($16), laksa ($25), A.S.S. cookies ($6), potato chips and dip ($11.50).

Transportation: Street parking. 19th Street Oakland BART station.

Drinks: Beer, wine and nonalcoholic cocktails. Try the Jade Jungle ($15).

Best practices: If you want to enjoy the dining room instead of the parklet, it's recommended that you book a reservation. The earlier you show up, the better your chance to score the shaobing service. Additionally, order the mushroom goreng and pandan cake.

Reach Cesar Hernandez: [email protected]; Twitter: @cesarischafa