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Monday, January 26, 2009
Food / News Happy Chinese New Year
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Today marks the start of a new year based on the Lunar Calendar. Chinese New Year is the most important holiday for Chinese and Taiwanese. Though many other Asian countries also celebrate Chinese/Lunar New Year due to influence from China.
The new year is traditionally celebrated by visiting kin, relatives and friends, a practice known as "new-year visits," as well as donning new clothes to signify a new year. Food is also a big part of the festivities. It is popular to eat noodles, fish, and dumplings.
To celebrate here in Charlotte, go get some Chinese food at Dim Sum restaurant. The Chinese restaurant located on Central Avenue serves up some of the tastiest dim sum dishes and Chinese food in town.
If you've never had dim sum before, it can be compared to Spanish tapas. When you eat dim sum, you order small plates of food to share with the table. Dim sum translated literally means, "a slight touch to the heart." On the weekends, feast your eyes on a parade of food as the wait-staff at Dim Sum wheel around carts of steamer baskets full of dumplings, trays of buns, and plates of Chinese fare. When you see something you want, you simply just point to the dish. They'll place the food on your table and mark a card tallying up your order as you go. On weekdays, there usually isn't the glorious parade of food on wheels, but you can still order the same dim sum items off the menu. Often times I find that eating on weekdays is better because the food is extra crispy and hot since the dishes come straight from the kitchen rather than off the cart.
Here's a quick and rough guide to dim sum:
- Shumai (a pork and mushroom open dumpling)
- Pork Buns (a personal #1 favorite
- Har gao (shrimp dumplings)
- Leek dumplings (pan-fried so the bottoms are slightly crisped)
![Turnip cakes (made with shredded turnip, these slightly sticky fried \](http://i.pbase.com/v3/22/505122/1/51205506.EPh0008.jpg "Turnip cakes (made with shredded turnip, these slightly sticky fried \")
- Turnip cakes (made with shredded turnip, these slightly sticky fried "cakes" have bits of Chinese sausage in them)
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