Lunar New Year is a holiday that is celebrated all across Asia, beginning with the first new moon of the lunar calendar (February 5 this year) and ending on the first full moon fifteen days later (February 19). It goes by different names, such as Chinese Chunjie, Vietnamese Tết, and Tibetan Losar; it’s also commonly referred to as Spring Festival.
Each year is associated with an animal from the twelve-year Chinese Zodiac calendar—this year, it’s the Year of the Pig. But no matter the culture, all celebrations involve preparing and eating foods that symbolize prosperity, health, and good luck. Here’s where and what to eat in the Triangle to ring in the Year of the Pig. And here’s wishing you a year filled with many delicious moments, too.
Family-Style Chinese Feast at G.58 Modern Chinese
G.58 Modern Chinese, which opened in Morrisville last October, serves modern interpretations of traditional Chinese fare, prepared with top-notch ingredients, plated beautifully, and served with fine-dining finesse. Throughout the month of February, G.58 will celebrate Chinese New Year by offering a family-style, five-course dinner menu (for parties of four, six, or eight, each with a different menu and fixed price). There will be various options for each course, including appetizers, soup, entrees, dim sum, and dessert. Highlights include dishes such as roasted Peking duck, a signature spicy lobster tail, and tempura-style shrimp with sweet honey glaze. For more information or to make a reservation, call 919-466-8858 or visit G.58’s website.
Sticky Rice and Congee with Thousand-Year Egg at Tết New Year Festival
On Sunday, February 10, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., the Vietnamese-American Association of Raleigh will host its annual Tết New Year Festival at Dorton Arena in Raleigh. The festivities will include a lion dance, martial arts demonstrations, an incense-burning ceremony to offer gifts of food and fruit to ancestors, and plenty of traditional Vietnamese food. One of the main staples of Tết is sticky rice with meat and/or mung beans, wrapped in a banana leaf (the green symbolizes money) and tied with a red string (which symbolizes good luck). Additional dishes include congee (rice porridge) with thousand-year egg, which represents longevity and good health, noodle soups to warm the soul, and broken rice with grilled meat and vegetables, a dish that is prepared uniquely for Tết. Tickets are $10 ($5 for children ages seven to twelve and seniors over seventy). For more information or to purchase tickets, click here.
Mooncakes at Heirloom Brewshop
Heirloom Brewshop’s menus and ethos reflect its owners’ shared Taiwanese, Japanese, and Laotian heritage, from the coffee, tea, sake, and cocktails to pastries and small plates. To celebrate the start of Lunar New Year, Heirloom will serve mooncakes. As Heirloom shared on Instagram, the moon is one of the most respected sources of light, strength, and inspiration across Asia, so much so that it’s considered rude to point directly at the moon. Owners Chuan Tsay and Anna Phommavong say that in the U.S., they’ve only found packaged mooncakes, often with a dense egg yolk filling. To remedy that, they developed their own recipe for fresh mooncakes and filled them with combinations such as black sesame puree and peanut butter or anko (red bean) to create a softer, creamier mouthfeel. The mooncakes are available today through next week.