Year of the Snake 2013

Gung hay fat choy! Happy Year of the Snake! The last “official” day of the Lunar/Chinese New Year celebrations (the Lantern Festival) occurs on the 15th day on the Lunar calendar, which is February 24 (tomorrow!).

There are certain auspicious foods that you should eat during the Chinese New Year. Every year there are two that I always try to do- and so far it certainly hasn’t hurt!

1. Eat Dumplings.

Dumplings are symbols of wealth, because traditional Chinese money were gold and silver ingots. This is pretty easy to do- there are so many places that offer dumplings, even food carts and restaurants that aren’t Chinese food specific. In fact this year I got them from a Thai cart, and the first dumplings you see below are from a Korean restaurant. Another more creative take on this is to visit The Dump Truck food cart, which focuses just on creative dumplings such as bacon cheeseburger dumplings and Potato Curry dumpling or Mr Ma dumpling on the right below.

One great version of dumplings I had was when I was visiting in LA and we went to ROC Kitchen as covered by my brother at his blog and the photos are his. The pot stickers I made our table wait 15 minutes for  (even though we had already eaten everything else we ordered- I tried to order it with our original waitress but she didn’t understand but when the owner came to check on us I asked for them based on online reviews that recommended it) were totally worth it.

dumplings at Cha Dong Tofu House The Dump Truck food cart dumplings Pan Fried Noodles from ROC Kitchen in LA. Photo courtesy of Spong Pan Fried Noodles from ROC Kitchen in LA. Photo courtesy of Spong

2. Noodles

Long noodles represent a nice long life, so when eating noodles for this time of year means ordering the longest noodles you can (rather than say, pan fried flat rice noodles extra crispy which is a favorite of mine because you don’t want the noodles to be cut). Other than that though, they can be any kind of noodles you want- flour, rice, egg, wheat, etc. This year I fulfilled this by slurping up long ramen noodles at Hakatamon with work colleagues.

But feel free to go all out by going to Boke Bowl which specializes in ramen with fancy upgrades like the fried chicken  and pork belly as you see below, visit a chinese pulled noodle specialist such as Noodle House Food Cart, or by simply rocking noodles with garlic like what you see below from Star Noodle (which I still remember so fondly and look forward to visiting again this year in Maui).

Sushi and Ramen at Hakatamon restaurant Boke Bowl ramen noodles with fried chicken and pork belly and pulled pork Noodle House Food Cart Chinese noodles Garlic Noodles from Star Noodle in Maui

There are more foods to eat- check out this cool infographic from one of the blogs I read, Steamy Kitchen, for more foods to eat- and she also provides recipes to try!

The Chinese New Year Lantern viewings at the local Lan Su Chinese Gardens are sold out already this year, but consider visiting anyway any other time of year. I love the tranquility once you walk through the entrance even though it is located downtown essentially, and they have a tea house where you can enjoy a selection of various Chinese teas and snacks.

Lantern Festival in the rain at Lan Su Chinese Gardens tea and Chinese snack at Lan Su Chinese Gardens

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Recently in Seattle… Tavern Law cocktails, Lunch at Revel

I love the concept of Tavern Law and their beverages (you’ll just have to trust me on this one because they do not have anything useful on their website). Their tiny kitchen right next to the bar is pushing out little small plates like the tempting mac and cheese with duck fat crumbs on top. But the space is very small, and the standing room is awkward because you are inevitably in the way between a bar stool and another stool by the center counters, or between chairs at tables… Their seats really seems much like you in the library of someone’s home, which I suppose does go with their speakeasy theme. The best place to sit is at the bar- otherwise as they craft these cocktails and also try to deliver the small plates they can’t really get around to check on anyone for refills very often.

Tavern Law cocktails, SeattleTavern Law cocktails, Seattle

I started out with the Flip of  Lusty Lady (pictured) and finished up with the Angry Unicorn Project (not pictured- it’s quite a manly scotchy drink) as we admired pretty people around us (some lucky ones who had made reservations and went though the show of using the phone on the wall before being let into the secret passageway upstairs) before we met up with everyone in the group and went to dinner at small plates restaurant Lark a few blocks away.

Tavern Law cocktails, SeattleTavern Law cocktails, Seattle

Lunch at Revel which serves an urbanized modern take on Korean was amazing- and the counter where you can sit and watch your food prepared in a kitchen so open stretches across the whole bar but is also like a kitchen in a home. We started out with a light salad of Hearts of palm, spinach, smoked peanut, miso vinaigrette- even though we did talk about their corned lamb salad. We shared a rice bowl of Albacore tuna, fennel kimchi, escarole which they advertised with egg yolk, and it was ok, but would have been so much better if it had been a shared stone bowl, which is what I had been expecting. Meanwhile we also shared the decent noodle dish of Dungeness crab, seaweed noodle, creme fraiche, spicy red curry.

We tried each of their pancakes (the Kale, walnut, arugula, pecorino was surprisingly my favorite over the Pork belly, kimchi, bean sprout one or the Squid, chick peas, pickled padron pepper one) and also each of their dumplings which brought back good memories of the half a hand size potstickers of old Hong Min. For the dumplings, we all swooned over the rich Cauliflower ricotta, black truffle sesame, pickled leek dumpling, which blew out of the water the other two options of Shrimp and bacon, pickled ginger, cilantro dumpling and the Short rib, shallot, scallion dumpling. I definitely want to make it a visit the next time I go to Seattle for personal reasons.

korean fusion lunch, Seattle, Revel

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