Chinese New Year

Well it's the year of the Tiger... Sorry, I had to go there! We just got home after celebrating Chinese New Year at our favourite local Chinese restaurant here in San Antonio, Kim Wah!

Kim Wah is a gem of a restaurant hidden in a typically ugly San Antonio strip mall. A group of us from work try to visit at least every two weeks and order an insane amount of really good food for about the same price as some horrid chain eatery lunch would set us back - Our favourites are peking duck with soup, salt toasted pork rib, snow pea leaves with garlic, beef flat noodles and of course the deliciously wonderful eggplant with sticky, sweet sauce! We were invited to last year's banquet but couldn't get a group together in time so I was determined not to miss out this year, even if New Year's Eve fell on the valentine's day weekend.

This year we did make it, along with our food savy friends Matt and Claire and of course Mr Roo (a fave of the restaurant staff). In my 'stupid white people' attempt to wear red for the evening I managed to dress Marty and myself in matching t-shirts (threadless of course) and didn't realise until we were on our way. The beloved thought it was intentional!

The restaurant was packed with a great mixed croud of people who knew the traditions and those of us who were just having a lovely time learning it all. I have to say they did a really good job of making it inclusive - of making sure we knew what was happening and why.

First course out was the Peking duck which is always a delight. They serve it sliced with fluffy steamed rice buns, spring onion slivers and hoisin sauce and you make little tasty duck rolls. Marty loves the sauce! Usually this is served with a broth made from the bones and either watercress or wombok, but there was no room for the soup at this banquet (Marty loves the soup too).

Next up was shrimp skewers served with a delicious dipping sauce that was more curry paste than sauce (poor Jose, there was lots of seafood but we made sure she had plenty to eat too)

Then came sticky, fall off the bone tender braised pork ribs with sweet 'special sauce' (like a rice wine based Texas BBQ sauce only Chinese... yummy!)

After that we had the most divine dish - braised abalone with shiitake mushrooms and snow pea leaves in garlic sauce. It was incredibly simple but sooo good. The sauce didn't overpower the very subtle abalone and the mixture of textures was a real treat.

The abalone came out with one of my absolute favourite dishes and one that I would be training myself to make if only I could find the lotus leaves - sticky rice with Chinese sausage and bbq pork in lotus leaves. This wonderfully chewy rice dish is sweet and salty and has a rich, smoky tea flavour from the leaves. I'm glad it came out last or I would have totally filled up on it! We also scored a serving of the wonderful eggplant in garlic sauce thanks to the chef who was worried there weren't enough non-seafood dishes for Jose and knew it was a favourite of our table.

Somehow our dinner was timed perfectly so that just as all the food was all served the entertainment began. Marty was sleeping peacefully on the beloved's chest at this point but we decided to wake him and let him watch rather than have him woken and risk the wrath of a frightened babe! Lucky for us he loved the whole show - I think he thought the whole thing was purely for his entertainment!

There were ribbon dancers, plate dancers, a martial arts demonstration from an award winning 9 year old (who reminded me an awful lot of Aang) and of course the lions! Silly me thought the lion dance for the blessing of the restaurant would involved just one lion, but there were LOTS of them! The lion dance was very noisy with lots of drumming and cymbals but Marty loved it - we all did. I felt like I was in a room full of Wild Things and I think Marty thought his toys had come to life, it was brilliant!

Josie feeding a lion a money filled red envelope for good luck

This was the lucky lion that ate the food offering from the restaurant. No mean feat considering it involved one of the puppet masters jumping onto the shoulders of the other while still manipulating the costume!

All up it was a really fun night - good friends, great food and giant lions!! Oh and dessert was pretty tasty too... Mango with tapioca and pomelo