PrintChinese New Year Eats
Photograph by Adam Kuban, Serious Eats
Chinese New Year and the year of the pig according to the Chinese zodiac, begins this Sunday, February 18. Because Chinese New Year is tied to the lunar calendar, it falls on a different date every year, usually between January 19 and February 23. It begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice and ends 15 days later with the Lantern Festival. According to tradition, the celebration gets under way on New Year's Eve with a family dinner hosted at the eldest family member's home; it is considered the most important annual family tradition. Family members travel from near and far to attend. A family's given menu will vary by region, but here are some of the more popular dishes and their symbolism:
- A specialty soup like Bird's Nest (youthfulness and long life) or Shark Fin (prosperity)
- A vegetarian dish, jai choy or Buddha's delight
- Poultry: whole with feet and head
- Long leafy greens like Chinese broccoli, gai lon (long life for parents)
- Whole fish or yu (sounds like abundance)
- Long-grain rice or noodles for long life
If you'd like to celebrate by dining out, we've asked our expert friends for their picks of some of the best Chinese restaurants around the country. And before you make your banquet reservation, we'd recommend reading San Francisco Chronicle food writer Olivia Wu's excellent guide to banquet dining.
Atlanta
Christiane Lauterbach, Atlanta Magazine: "The best place to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Atlanta is Oriental Pearl. This is the anchor restaurant for Chinatown Square and the place where the A-list of the Chinese community goes for all its banquets. I have had many New Years there."
Oriental Pearl Restaurant: 5399 New Peachtree Road, Chamblee GA 30341 [map]. 770-986-9866
Boston
Jane Black, food editor of Boston Magazine (and Serious Eats contributor), recommends Peach Farm.
Peach Farm: 4 Tyler Street, Boston MA 02111 [map]. 617-482-1116
Houston
In Houston, Robb Walsh of the Houston Press recommends Fung's Kitchen Seafood Restaurant, which won the paper's Houston Press Best Chinese Restaurant Award in 2005.
Fung's Kitchen Seafood Restaurant: 7320 Southwest Fwy, Suite 115, Houston TX 77074 [map]. 713-779-2288. fungskitchen.com
Miami
Miami Herald restaurant critic Victoria Pesce Elliott would send you to Tropical Chinese.
Tropical Chinese: 7991 Bird Road, Miami FL 33155 [map]. 305-262-1552
New York City
Serious Eats's own Ed Levine recommends the Chinatown Brasserie, noting that dim sum savant Joe Ng is now in charge of the entire menu—not just the small dishes he earned his fame cooking up. And restaurant consultant Ed Schoenfeld tells us that all the Cantonese chefs are eating at Lucky Eight Restaurant in Brooklyn.
Chinatown Brasserie: 380 Lafayette Street, New York NY 10005 [map]. 212-533-7000. chinatownbrasserie.com
Lucky Eight: 5204 Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11220 [map]. 718-851-8885
Philadelphia
Asbury Park Press restaurant critic and food editor Andrea Clurfeld, one of Serious Eats's most reliable set of taste buds, recommends Shiao Lan King Restaurant.
Shiao Lan King Restaurant: 930 Race Street, Philadelphia PA 19107 [map]. 215-928-0282
San Francisco
Michael Bauer, San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic, points you toward Koi Palace, just south of the city.
Koi Palace: 365 Gellert Boulevard, Daly City, CA 94015 [map] 650-992-9000. koipalace.com
Seattle
Nancy Leson of the Seattle Times puts O'Asian Kitchen at the top of her list.
O'Asian Kitchen: 800 Fifth Avenue, Bank of America Fifth Avenue Plaza, Suite 1, Seattle WA 98104 [map]. 206-264-1789. oasian.net
Year of the Pig illustration from iStockphoto
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13 Comments:
Got any cheaper NYC recommendations? I'm not much for Chinese food usually though the best meal I've had in NYC in my 8 months here was Dim Sum at the Chinatown in Flushing. Personally, I'm not so excited for Chinese New Year as I am for Vietnamese Tet! Same thing, I know. But I used to lived in Vietnam so I'll be on the lookout for Banh Tet when I head down to Chinatown on Sunday.
NSW at 9:36AM on 02/16/07
Ed Schoenfeld's recent piece in New York Magazine is a good intro to Manhattan's Chinatown.
Alaina Browne at 10:18AM on 02/16/07
I like Chanoodle on Mulberry St. for all kinds of fried rice, and New Green Bo is also quite good. I second Alaina's tip above.
Ed Levine at 10:23AM on 02/16/07
What? Koi Palace is terrible - food is only okay, and service is horrible unless you are friends with the servers. Head down to Millbrae or go to Ton Kiang in San Francisco.
As someone who does celebrate Chinese New Year in the traditional way, let me just say that eating out on those days feels completely and utterly wrong!
toastykitten at 11:32AM on 02/16/07
@toastykitten: could you share some of your Millbrae recs with us?
Alaina Browne at 12:55PM on 02/16/07
I am not Toasty Kitten, but I think Fook Yuen and HK Flower Lounge (pictured in Adam's photo in article above) are good, though whenever there is a switching of chefs, the reputation does change for these Millbrae restaurants. Koi Palace is good though--service has always been standard, I think.
Eating out only feels wrong if you want it to.
NYminknit at 1:00PM on 02/16/07
I was going to mention Fook Yuen too, actually. There are also a bunch of other Chinese restaurants in the same area (on El Camino Real, near the BART station) that are also decent, such as Kwong's Seafood. Little Sichuan in San Mateo is another low-key place I like.
I get pretty picky about my Chinese food (having excellent cooks for parents). I was really just unimpressed with Koi Palace and thought it kind of bland in comparison to other good Chinese restaurants.
Another favorite is Willow Tree up in Pleasanton. They do authentic food, but they cater mostly to white people, so bring friends who can read the Chinese menu and order off of that.
Anyway, the New Year is family time for us, so I don't think I'll be eating out for a bit. :)
toastykitten at 4:09PM on 02/16/07
Nice roundup, Alaina! I love that little funky Year of the Pig graphic.
lia at 5:54PM on 02/16/07
Houston, but no DC? Serious Eats, you're killing me! We've got Michel Richard, Roberto Donna, and Jose Andres. Please give us a nod once in awhile.
MMcCart at 11:16AM on 02/17/07
DC (well at least Falls Church) has excellent Vietnamese food! I believe Falls Church has one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the country (after Orange County, San Jose, and Houston). I'm sure they'll be some Tet festivals out there this weekend. Best Pho I've had is in Falls Church and I once had a very refreshing Nuoc Mia out there as well.
NSW at 1:11PM on 02/17/07
I actually wrote up three comprehensive posts on the subject of food and its symbolism during Chinese New Year last year. You can find them here:
http://thehungryrose.blogspot.com/2006/01/woof-woof-happy-lunar-new-yearpart-1.html
http://thehungryrose.blogspot.com/2006/02/chinese-lunar-new-year-part-2-sweet.html
http://thehungryrose.blogspot.com/2006/02/chinese-lunar-new-year-part-3-customs.html
I realize this isn't IN in NYC proper, but the best Chinese New Year's meal my family has had outside of our home is at a great restaurant called "Aberdeen" in White Plains (Westchester county), located in the Marriott Residence Inn.
http://www.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=aberdeen&near=White+Plains,+NY&radius=0.0&latlng=41033889,-73763333,15849827070965604637&sa=X&oi=local&ct=authority
Rose at 1:55AM on 02/18/07
In our house, Chinese New Year is celebrated on December 31 with a feast of chinese dishes (it was a diabolical way to get newly-legal kids to stay safely home on New Year's Eve!). While it is time-consuming (mostly the prep work) to make chinese food, it is fun and you can make sure you have lots of leftovers to eat through the week!
play-with-food at 7:23AM on 02/18/07
here in austin, we are seriously lacking in the chinese restaurant department, but i had an absolutely lovely CNY meal with some egulleters last night at Pao's Mandarin House in Lakeway. Pao's really is the best authentic chinese restaurant in austin, and one of the best in texas, even rivaling those in coastal cities with larger chinese population. the friendly and knowledgeable staff, some from beijing, filled us in all the meaning behind the food choices for our new year's celebration. and everything was perfectly prepared. i have pics on flickr that i would link to right now, but flickr is having a massage. :(
yi at 10:48PM on 02/19/07