Just for the record, Mayor Mark Funkhouser was born in 1949, the Chinese Year of the Ox. (According to one website, this means he tends to be "eccentric, bigoted, and angers easily...".) But for this year's celebration of Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit -- a year that reportedly ushers in prosperity, health and fortune -- Funkhouser has proclaimed the week of January 31 through February 6 as Kansas City's first "Chinese Week."
A number of local restaurants and cultural organizations are gearing up for Chinese New Year festivities, with the actual Chinese New Year's Day falling on Thursday, February 3.
The six area Bo Lings restaurants will offer special Chinese New Year dinner specials on their menus from February 3 through February 17, including Vietnamese spring rolls with roast duck, sauteed whole flounder prepared in a Cantonese ginger-onion sauce, and fresh pineapple-fried rice. The dessert specials will be mango rice pudding or that Venice-born delicacy, tiramisu: a pastry that apparently crosses all cultural lines during Chinese New Year.
Fashion plate Carol Wu, owner of Overland Park's Andy's Wok restaurant, will be celebrating Chinese New Year from January 29 through February 5. Asked if she's having special dishes during the Year of the Rabbit festivities, Wu responds: "Specials? I always have specials at Andy's Wok. Every day is special here."
The Society for Friendship with China, Inc. will host a Chinese New Year feast at the Hotel InterContinental Kansas City on Sunday, January 30, featuring performances by a drum roller and the Silk Road Dance Troupe. Tickets are $8; for more information, click on the society's web page.
(Image via Flickr: herocakepops)
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