Discover traditional Spring Festival foods

Discover traditional Spring Festival foods

Discover traditional Spring Festival foods

Last year for Chinese New Year, I viewed the fireworks from Atmosphere, on the 80th floor of the China World Summit Wing. Though the view of dusty Beijing looking like a warzone was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, I was really craving traditional Chinese dishes that I’m used to from home. On a mission to find a restaurant, instead I found closed doors and unexpectedly stumbled into holiday staff parties. So I suggest for all staying in the city for Chunjie to instead prepare for a dinner party. And a proper Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner includes much more than just making jiaozi.

My favorite dish that appears at my family table for Spring Festival is whole steamed fish, which is meant to bring abundance. Serving the fish whole with the bones is not something many Westerners are used to, but for this custom, it implies eating prosperity from head to tail. This dish is usually steamed lightly with soy sauce, scallions, ginger and garlic, but every family has their own version. For the freshest fish I recommend heading to Fengtai’s Jingshen Seafood Market. There are also multiple restaurants around the area that can cook your freshly bought market fish for you. I recommend going to Dalian Haixian on the third floor of the seafood market.

For dessert, my Hakka Chinese family makes qiaoguo, a crunchy fried dough twist with sesame seeds. Since this is a homemade dish, I failed to find any in grocery stores. But Din Tai Fung, though mostly known for dumplings, also offers various treats that you can pre-order and take home. Their tangyuan (¥16) are steamed glutinous rice dumpling balls in a sweet boiled rice water and wine soup topped with goji berries. Tangyuan are traditionally eaten for Yuanxiao Jie on the last day of Chinese New Year, but you can enjoy them earlier, too.

According to southern Chinese, pomelos symbolize prosperity because the two words sound similar in Cantonese. These bowling ball-sized fruits have a sweet citrus taste, comparable to grapefruit but without the sour bitterness. For the sweetest taste, I pick heavier ones with pale green to yellowish skin but not too yellow. I apologize in advance if you get a sour one, but you can always toss it out the window and watch it splatter on the ground. This is the only time of year where blowing up explosives and letting off steam in chaotic ways is completely acceptable, so you might as well take advantage.

The Chinese New Year ritual food list is much more extensive, but these are a few favorites that I hope will help you ring in the Year of the Dragon.