Chinese new years celebration in San Francsico, DAAN’s home city:
“Beginning this weekend, Chinese restaurants in major cities here and across the Pacific will be busier than at any other time of the year. Sunday ushers in the Year of the Boar and, with it, two weeks of eating and celebrating.
Status foods such as abalone, bird’s nest, shark’s fin and sea cucumber, among others, will appear on menus. Other specials, such as New Year’s cake (there are savory and sweet versions) made of pounded rice or glutinous rice, golden purses (to signify wealth), and whole steamed fish, are symbolic of good fortune and blessings.
Some regional foods rely on the spoken regional dialect for meaning. In the Cantonese repertory, a desert weed called “fa choy” is employed in a vegetarian dish because the name is a homonym for “fat choy” in the Cantonese greeting “Gung hay fat choy,” meaning happiness and wealth.
These foods will be part of feasts hosted by Chinese families and businesses from Shanghai to Hong Kong to Taipei to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It’s time for the finest of fine dining, and the biggest of banquets. Fast-paced, work-dictated lifestyles have led to entertaining in restaurants rather than at home. In place of one’s own dining room, Chinese restaurants offer private rooms. ”
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