Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Fish Night
To celebrate Chinese New Year, we dined with some of our regular Fish Night guests at Asia Nine in D.C. They have a wonderful prix fixe menu especially for this great holiday, and the food was amazing. I can recommend it heartily! Is anyone else doing something food-wise to celebrate the Year of the Dragon?
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Sandy: I wish more people would comment on what you and I and a small number of others are putting on the blog, but we seem to attract the silent types. Still, my access to the stats tells me that a goodly number of people are reading the blog and probably returning to it, certainly on Tuesdays when your excellent article appears. I don't want you to feel your well chosen words are going out into the atmosphere without recognition. Since I know little about fish, you've educated me and I'm sure others with your efforts.So thanks so much from me.
ReplyDeleteRE Lunar New Year Celebrations:
ReplyDeleteI am hostessing a potluck Chinese New Year's brunch this Sunday, Jan. 29. (Official New Year's celebrations last 15 days.) Wish me luck - I don't know how many guests are coming nor what they will bring nor what I will make to fill in any "gaps." None of us are Oriental, either, so whatever we get will be interesting.
Traditional dishes include noodles (long, symbolizing long life), oranges, tangerines, and anything red. Red is a lucky color for this festivity and guests bring gifts, often coins, in red envelopes (or is it the hostess that gives out the red envelopes? I will have to check my sources.) All this information is from the Web.
So, Sandy, what did the Asia Nine restaurant have on its New Year's menu? Give me some "authentic" suggestions.
ReplyDeleteDee -- I hope your New Year celebration went well. I'd love to hear about it. I'm sorry I did not get back to you about the dishes on the Asia Nine menu -- I've been out of town on a visit to see my mom and raking a break from my electronic devices.
DeleteHere's the menu for our restaurant celebration at Asia Nine -- we tasted it all!
First Course: Egg Drop Soup with Crispy Noodles [ this was seasoned with 5-spice powder -- not your usual egg drop soup!]
Choice of Second Course: Crispy Taro with Seasoned Crispy Fried Shrimp and Sweet Sesame Sauce ORSteamed Chicken Tofu with Sesame-Ginger Glaze, Seaweed, Baby Corn & Marinated Shitake Mushrooms OR Chinese Salmon Sashimi with Sesame Ginger Soy Sauce
Choice of Third Course: Wok-Fired Seafood "Dragon" OR Seafood, Vegetables & Chinese Herbs Stir-Fry with Crispy Chinese Egg Noodles OR Asia Nine's Lemon Chicken OR Lightly Battered, Fried Lemon Garlic Chicken with Baby Bok Choy and Jasmine Rice OR The Red Lantern [Four Fresh Fish Nigiri, Red Ika Créme Cup, and Red Lantern Special Sushi Roll]
Choice of Dessert: Chinese Custard OR Light Flaky Pastry with Sweet Custard Filling.
All of it very yummy.
Ginko Sesame Balls
Puff Rice Balls with Sweet Ginko Sesame Filling
My Chinese New Year celebration was a potluck brunch, so all the guests brought a dish.
DeleteWe usually start with appetizers: one person brought tofu cubes in a soy-based sauce, one brought egg rolls, and I made spicy tea hardboiled eggs, some caramelized mixed nuts with ginger and a Chex Mix recipe with crystallized ginger and dried cranberries, soy sauce, nuts, and five spice powder.
We had soup: chicken stock with slices of baby bok choy, a little ginger root and soy for seasoning, and egg drops. (my cooking)
For main courses we had a noodle dish with shrimp and veggies, a rice dish, a beef stir fry with asparagus (my dish), Chinese chicken teriyaki bao (frozen, from Costco, added by me to fill things in), oriental sesame green beans and rice.
Dessert was floating almond curd with mandarin oranges, orange coffee cake and ice cream, and red cherries.
I made gallons of hot tea in the crockpot.
We had a lot of red: red cocktail napkins, red paper plates for appetizers, red undercloth for the table, red cherries, red tissue paper flowers on the table, etc. Red wine. Very lively group.