Vietnamese New Year foods

This year, the Vietnamese New Year falls on Feb 7 (The Year of the Rat). In Vietnamese, to celebrate Tet is to an Tet, literally meaning “Tet eating”, showing the importance of food in its celebration. Some of the food is also eaten year-round, while other dishes are only eaten during Tet.

These foods include:
Banh chung and Banh tet: essentially tightly packed sticky rice cake with pork or mung bean fillings wrapped in banana leaves. Banh chung (rectangular) and Banh tet (circular) are symbolically connected with Tet, representing Heaven and Earth. You can also find a sweet version of Banh tet with plantain filling. So when you go to the grocery store, make sure you ask which filling is in the rice cakes.


The rice cakes are served with the pickled vegetables. These are quite salty and definitely are an acquired taste for starters. Myself, I just eat the rice cakes with a few drops of fish sauce.


Hat Dua: roasted watermelon seeds, also eaten during Tet.


Mut: dehydrated candied fruits, served with hot tea as desserts or snacks.


Checkout the local newspaper for specific time & place to watch the traditional Lion dance and firecrackers event. My guess is the weekend of Feb 9 and/or 10.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi (Happy New Year!)

Nghe

Nghe,

Thanks for posting this! I am especially glad you included pictures. I haven't been to Argyle lately, but I am guessing that is a good place to look for these items and any celebration events. Anyone out there have specific suggestions?

Last weekend, some friends and I went to Argyle St. to dine and to hunt for Year of the Rat gifts. I didn't realize that the banana leaf-wrapped sticky rice with plantain filling that I bought was also celebrating the new year. What fun. Thanks for sharing that info -- it makes it seem more special. I also bought a plastic container full of dried bananas (tiny bananas that had been flattened) -- so that's Mut, eh? Excellent to know.

I feel as though, now that I know more about the holiday, I should try to get back down to Argyle before Feb. 7.

Cám ón.

one of my son's classmate's is Vietnamese and his family kindly put a flyer in each of the kids' cubbies announcing the parade on Argyle Street. It will be on Saturday the 9th starting at 11:30 am. Can't wait to go . . . and thanks so much for the original part of this post, Nghe. I love learning about new celebratory foods! I've had the dried coconut "candy" before but didn't know about the sticky rice in banana leaves.

Wu Zhi 4705 Year of the Rat!

bjt

Several Chinese restaurants in the area offer special New Year menus to celebrate this joyful occasion. It's too bad that the Vietnamese restaurants haven't caught up to this golden commercial and cultural opportunity yet. Perhaps we should contact the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and let them know a few suggestions!

A few examples:

Ben Pao - Get Lucky in '08 Bash (6pm Feb 7), $28
- absolut luck cocktail
- good fortune wontons
- gold coin crab cakes
- long life noodles

Le Lan - 3 course tasting menu (Feb 7), $40
- lemongrass marinated blue prawns with gren papaya salad and coriander-lime vinaigrette
- pork tonkatsu with somen noodle, bok choy and star anise-ginger broth
- pearl tapioca pudding with golden pineapple, blood oranges, and mango

I am sure it doesn't include an Absplut cocktail, but on their flier, the Argyle Street Merchant's Chamber of Commerce actually states that businesses displaying the Year of the Rat logo will be offering New Year specials and to ask for them, so maybe they are trying . . .

bjt

Thanks for the original posting! As much as we all enjoy so many different types of ethnic foods, it's interesting to learn about the culture that goes along with the food.

Enjoy!!

just so everyone knows, there is a post under the professionals index about chinese new year. the vietnamese new year and chinese new year are on the same date. argyle st. is not only having a parade, there are also coupons going around for specials that day. those can be printed online at http://www.uptownevents.org. also, we are having a promotion for chinese new year. table side service of beijing duck, aka peking duck. so come on by and help us celebrate!

4706 Year of the Ox will fall on Monday Jan 26, 2009 !

The Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown is scheduled for Sunday February 1 at 1 pm CST on Wentworth from 24th Street to Cermak Road. The Chinatown Chinese New Year Parade will be celebrating with local marching bands, beautiful floats, dancing lion teams, a100’ Mystical Dragon, and a Miss Friendship Ambassador.

The Lunar New Year Parade in Uptown/Argyle St. is scheduled for Saturday January 31 at 1 pm CST starts with traditional dragon and lion dances and Kung Fu demonstrations. Floats and bands proceed through the neighborhood from Argyle Street to Sheridan Road, south to Lawrence Avenue and north on Broadway to Argyle Street.

Does anybody have an idea when the 2010 parade on Argyle St. is going to be?

Thanks.

* Lunar New Year Parade
Hosted and sponsored by Hip Sing and Area Merchants

Saturday, February 20, 2010
11:30am-1pm
1121 W. Argyle

This parade is a visual delight with parade floats, two lion dance teams, a dragon dance team, martial arts demonstrations, and two sections of the Rickover Naval Academy marching band!

The parade steps off at noon from Broadway & Argyle, heading East on Argyle, South on Sheridan, West on Ainslie and then north on Broadway, ending in the Tai Nam parking lot (4925 N. Broadway).

A traditional firecracker display will take place at Hip Sing – 1121 W. Argyle St.

--------------------------------------------------------------
11th Annual Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade & Festival
Time: 1pm - 4 pm, Sunday, February 14, 2010
Wentworth from 24th Street to Cermak

Chinatown New Year Parade celebrating the Lunar New Year, “Year of the Tiger, 4708" will include marching bands, floats, lion teams, 100' Mystical Dragon, Miss Chinatown and Miss Friendship Ambassador. Please join us to welcome in the new year as we convey “ Gung Hay Fat Choy” to all in attendance

Thanks for the above info, but I believe the Chinatown Parade is February 14, not the 21. See here, e.g.:

http://www.chicagochinatown.org/cccorg/home.jsp

Always glad to have a reason to explore Argyle, I highly recommend this event to people who are looking for a more homespun, lower-key Lunar New Year celebration. Somehow, we missed the marching band - but the dancing lion/firecracker display went on pretty much all day long, if you missed it in one spot it was pretty easy to pick up elsewhere. It was much less crowded than Chinatown, and definitely more of a charming neighborhood thing than a tourist draw (though I think tourists would enjoy it, too.)

We had a lovely lunch at Sun Wah (we parked upwind and were almost carried by our noses to the front door - the smell of roasting meat was incredible) Sparky had a make-your-own bowl of soup with rice noodles, excellent shrimp dumplings, wontons, and roast duck (he's quite over the fact that he's eating a nice ducky - all it took was a taste.) I had the excellent mixed BBQ platter, and the hubby had some bbq pork ribs - we managed to clean our plates pretty thoroughly, despite it being lots of food. The new place is certainly much bigger and brighter - but I was glad they still have the glass-enclosed area where you can watch the cooks hack apart the food Nothing says satisfaction to me like the sound of a forceful cleaver making its way through bones and meat.

2012 Lunar New Year Parade

GUNG HAY FAT CHOI TO ALL!

The 2012 Lunar New Year Parade celebrating the Year of the DRAGON 4710 will include marching bands, floats, lions teams, a mystical dragon, and Miss Friendship Ambassador. Please join us to welcome the New Year as we convey GUNG HEI FAT CHOI to all in attendance!

This year's parade also kicks off celebrations of the Chinatown Centennial 1912-2012!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Parade step-off time is 1:00PM though there are other activities starting as early as 11:30AM

The parade on Argyle will be on Saturday, January 28th starting at 1 pm.

http://explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/event_landing/events/mose/argyle_st__chinese.html