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Maneet Chauhan, recognized on the 2019 Nation’s Restaurant News Power List, will celebrate the Year of the Pig at her Nashville, Tenn., restaurant Tánsuŏ with dishes like Toishan Sui Mai — dumplings with pork, salted fish, crab paste and slightly sweet, seasoned soy sauce.
The California restaurant will serve a Lunar New Year menu for the first time Tuesday through Friday. The holiday special will feature Asian fusion dishes that incorporate colors or ingredients that have symbolic meaning: red for good fortune; gold for wealth; sticky rice and noodles for longevity; pork for land; squab and quail for heaven; and seafood for sea. For example, one of the menu items is an eight-hour massaged suckling pig with sticky red rice, green onion confit and a truffle ponzu sauce. The full festive menu is $198 per guest, but a smaller version is available for $88.
RedFarm, a farm-to-table modern Chinese restaurant with two locations in New York City, will celebrate on Tuesday with a special menu: black truffle chicken soup dumplings (pictured), chowder, fried rice and grilled lobster with black truffle sauce. The truffles are sourced directly from farmers in France. RedFarm’s recently opened London unit will also serve select truffle items.
The quick-service chain is hosting a special event — dubbed “House of Good Fortune: A Lunar Year Experience” — in Los Angeles now through Tuesday. For the duration of the pop-up, guests can immerse themselves in multi-sensory rooms with interactive art installations showcasing Lunar New Year stories and themes tied to the holiday such as flying red envelopes, a changing hall of noodles, a festival of lanterns and more. Those who want to visit can sign up for free admission on the brand’s website.
On Tuesday, the American-Chinese restaurant operator will also give away a red envelope to each guest who visits. The envelope will contain a fortune teller toy, directions on how to play and coupons for a free chicken egg roll and a free 22-ounce Dr Pepper drink. Panda Express is based in Rosemead, Calif., with more than 2,100 locations.
Big Bowl, a seven-unit chain from Chicago-based multi-concept operator Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, is rolling out a special offering in celebration of Lunar New Year at its three Illinois units. Through Feb. 9, those stores are serving menu items with symbolic meaning within Chinese culture.
The eggs used for Big Bowl’s roasted pork egg foo young represent a big and healthy family. The Chinese dish comes with scallions, sprouts, celery and shiitake mushrooms; it is priced at $9.95.
Another festive menu item from Big Bowl is the crispy Cantonese cod — Alaskan cod with scallions, Fresno chiles, black bean sauce and jasmine rice — for $17.95. It’s common for Chinese people to consume fish during Lunar New Year since the Chinese word for fish sounds the same as the Chinese word for abundance or prosperity.
Through Feb. 28, guests at Wow Bao, another Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises concept with seven units, will get a red envelope with every purchase of pork pot stickers or dumplings. The red envelope, a Lunar New Year tradition in China and other Asian countries, comes with a surprise inside.
The two-unit New York City restaurant is serving special Lunar New Year fare through the end of February at its East Village location. The limited-time menu includes char siu baby back ribs. The ribs are slow-roasted and glazed heritage Duroc pork ribs that have been marinated in Cantonese rose sorghum liquor, tahini, peanut sauce, Japanese raw sugar and fermented tofu. The dish comes with crispy mung bean noodles for $12.
Tao Group, a 2018 Restaurant Hospitality 25 multi-concept operator, will serve a one-day-only pork-focused menu on Tuesday as a special nod to the Year of the Pig across its four Tao restaurants in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Chicago. The first course from the festive menu items, available à la carte or in a prix-fixe menu priced at $85 per person, will be a sesame scallion bread with glazed pork belly and a roasted sesame dip for $18.
The second course on Tao’s Lunar New Year menu will be black truffle and spicy pork soup dumplings for $28.
The third course will be a caramelized pork chop with blood orange chow fun noodles for $36.
The fourth course will be a cheesecake in the shape of a mandarin orange, served with a lit Chinese New Year “firecracker,” chocolate crémeux and pop rocks. The dessert will cost $12.
