This Friday will officially mark the start of the Year of the Ox and if you’re looking for delicious ways to celebrate in Vancouver, well, your year is already off to a lucky start.
Although traditions tend to vary based on the country of origin, many Vancouver businesses have put together delectable offerings to symbolize the aspiration for prosperity, longevity, and luck for the lunar year to come.
From epic multi-course feasts at eateries like Heritage Asian Eatery and Potluck Hawker Eatery to a beautiful bento box from Minami, to buttery baked croissants and cookies from Beaucoup Bakery, here are some great ways to celebrate Lunar New Year in Vancouver.
Bamboo Grove
Bamboo Grove is one of eight Vancouver restaurants who have partnered with the Chinese Restaurant Awards to raise funds for the new St. Paul’s at the Jim Pattison Medical Centre. The award-winning Cantonese eatery has assembled an impressive 10-course menu that features offerings like lettuce with fermented bean curd hot pot, mala rib eye with peanuts, herb-crusted rack of lamb, and more.
$25 from each package sold will be directly donated to the Jim Pattison Medical Centre. Pre-orders and reservations can be made by calling the restaurant.
Beaucoup Bakery
In addition to a stunning Valentine’s Day collection, chef Betty Hung and Beaucoup Bakery recently released the Lucky 88 Collection–a brand new line of Lunar New Year-themed croissants and cookies.
Each 17-piece set comes complete with a gold-coloured Lunar New Year cookie tin filled with an assortment of brown butter walnut cookies, sesame toffee cookies, and genmaicha almond butter cookies, along with a savoury Chinatown BBQ Peking duck croissant and a Pandan mochi pistachio croissant.
Pre-orders can be made online.
Cà Phê Vietnamese Coffee House
Social enterprise Cà Phê Vietnamese Coffee House has switched things up slightly this year to make celebrating Lunar New Year more accessible to those who are only currently able to get together virtually.
Available In small and large sizes, each of Ca Phe’s red and gold Lunar New Year Lucky Treat Boxes contain red envelopes filled with Vietnamese đồng, traditional fortune candies that symbolize wealth, happiness, and luck, and a bag of Ca Phe coffee beans and coffee filter.
Pre-orders can be made online. A portion of all proceeds will go toward supporting education and community programming in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Gotham Steakhouse
Whether you’re looking to treat yourself to a luxurious night in or you prefer the full pampered restaurant experience, Gotham Steakhouse has you covered. For Lunar New Years, chef Jean Claude Douguet has put together a three-course menu that features fresh seafood and glass noodles to start, a main course of braised short rib in an Asian pear-soy reduction, and a matcha crème brûlée for dessert.
Pre-orders and reservations can be made online.
Heritage Asian Eatery
Heritage Asian Eatery is another Vancouver restaurant who has partnered with the Chinese Restaurant Awards to raise funds for the new St. Paul’s at the Jim Pattison Medical Centre.
The restaurant’s nine-course Dining For The Feast of Fortune menu is meant to feed four and features a variety of house favourites, such as Peking duck, Abalone Siu Mai, dungeness crab, chive prawn dumplings, and more. Heritage has also created a handful of special Lunar New Year dishes that symbolize fullness and fortune, including Mandarin salted egg yolk buns and noodles with shiitake and winter chanterelles.
Each dine-in and takeout order placed at the restaurant’s Broadway location will come complete with a traditional red envelope and a potential prize. Like Bamboo Grove, $25 from each package sold will be directly donated to the Jim Pattison Medical Centre. Pre-orders and reservations can be made by calling the restaurant.
Kinton Ramen
The culinary team at Kinton Ramen have created a special ramen feature to celebrate Lunar New Year that will be available for the entire month of February. The aptly named Longevity Ramen features thick noodles in a spicy miso chicken broth, topped with seasoned ground pork, deep-fried tofu, egg, wood ear mushrooms, bamboo shoots, scallions, radish, cilantro, and onion.
The Longevity Ramen is priced at $14.96 and is available for dine-in, takeout, and delivery.
Minami
Whether you prefer to dine in or take out, if you want to indulge in a luxurious seafood feast this Lunar New Year, Minami should be at the top of your list. For those who prefer takeout, Minami has created a Lunar New Year bento box that features a selection of aburi sushi, rolls, maki, and nigiri, along with an appetizer duo of asahi black hatcho and miso short rib gyoza, an entre duo of steak and chicken, and a dessert selection of caramel espresso choux à la crème, green tea opera, and seasonal mignardises.
For dine-in guests, Minami is offering a slew of a la carte specials that include fresh sashimi, Northern Divine caviar, a Japanese aburi ribeye surf and turf, and much more.
Pre-orders and reservations can be made online.
Potluck Hawker Eatery
Potluck Hawker Eatery has assembled a fantastic Lunar New Year takeout feast to feed four to six. The Potluck Hawker Lunar experience begins with the Malaysian and Singaporean tradition of Yu Sheng (Prosperity Toss), followed by eight courses of traditional symbolic dishes, such as whole Hainanese chicken with truffled soy bean sauce, whole chili lobster with longevity noodles, and duck confit with Chinese sausage fried rice.
Potluck Hawker’s Lunar New Year menu is available for takeout and can be ordered online.
