Good Taste is a menu for eating well in the Bay Area. Lunar New Year events kicked off all over the Bay this past weekend. This week, we’re highlighting even more special local events and treats happening for the next month in the Year of the Snake.
Pastries and pop-ups
Chef Keisuke Akabori is bringing his popular Casa de Kei pop-up to Millay (691 14th Street, SF) from 5-9pm on Wed/29. Akabori has written of his cooking-related excitement during the current-but-brief Dungeness crab season, and indeed, his à la carte menu this week includes Dungeness chili wonton tostadas.
Each Friday through Sunday between January 29 and February 9, b. patisserie (2821 California Street, SF) plans to offer a dozen special items in honor of Lunar New Year, including black sesame or pandan kouign amann, pineapple red bean bun panettone; and a mandarin orange travel cake. They can be ordered à la carte by visiting the shop, and there are a couple boxes that can be preordered on Tock for pickup.
Patty Yu’s family-operated weekly pop-up called Year of the Snake (2701 Eighth Street, Berkeley) was literally made for this moment, so it’s only appropriate to consider pre-ordering one of their weekly Sunday assortments of egg tarts and/or pastries. Walk-ins are also fine.
The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco (600 Stockton Street, SF) will present a free lion dance performance in the lobby at 5pm on Wed/29. The property invited Good Taste in over the past weekend to preview the Lunar New Year Afternoon Tea, a beautifully crafted, two-towered service featuring original bites such as a roasted kimchi quiche with wild mushrooms and fiscalini cheddar, duck larb on a crispy rice tuile with pickled shallots, a gold-gilded shrimp toast on brioche, smoked salmon on rye with wasabi avocado aioli and furikake, a five spice mousse bar, and a matcha tea cake with yuzu cream. The Lunar New Year Afternoon Tea will next take place at Parallel 37 restaurant on Feb. 23 (here’s the reservation link).
Special menus
Now through Feb. 4, Abacà (2700 Jones Street, SF) is presenting a Filipino-Chinese chef’s tasting menu that Chef Francis Ang and wife Dian Kris Ty-Ang says reflects their personal heritage. Dishes like Tsar Nicoulai Kaluga caviar with sunchoke ice cream and cocoa nib, Dungeness crab hot and sour soup, and fresh lumpia with winter root vegetables and seaweed also sound quite reflective of the Bay Area and how we love to eat.
Chef Tracy Goh at Damansara (1781 Church Street, SF) is expected to announce take-home meal kits of her Malaysian prosperity salad as well as a Pengyou dinner pop-up for Feb.1. Her main event this year is an eight-item Malaysian New Year Feast on Feb. 8 that requires advance RSVP and includes gold thread prawns, abalone & greens, longevity noodles, and other dishes that make me want to drop what I’m doing and go over to Noe Valley right now.
Chef Brandon Jew’s Mamahuhu (517 Clement Street, SF; 3991 24th Street, SF; 173 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley) is celebrating the business’ fifth anniversary and the new year with Sweet + Sour, a series of two menu collaborations with chef friends and a reflection on the highs and lows of being in the indie restaurant biz. A Cambodian version of fish fragrant chicken created by Lunette’s Chef Nite Yun will be on the menu from Feb. 1-15, while a Sicilian orange chicken from the team at Flour + Water will be featured from Feb. 16-Mar.1. Beer pairings from Pond Farm Brewing Co. will be offered throughout the month.
Parades
If you’re saving your grazing energy for parade days, San Francisco’s Chinese New Year Festival & Parade will be on Feb. 15 this year, with a Community Street Fair taking place on Feb. 15-16. The OCIC Lunar New Year Parade follows in Oakland’s Chinatown on Feb. 22. It will both begin and end at Wilma Chan Park (810 Jackson Street, Oakland). All are excellent opportunities to support the many family-owned Asian restaurants in the respective cities’ Chinatowns.
Tamara publishes the California Eating website, newsletter, and zine.
