Celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Monkey in style with visits to a few upscale Chinese restaurants, and start this New Year off the right way!
Three venues with exotic dishes: Mandarin Oriental restaurants
The Azul, La Mar by Gaston Acurio and the MO Bar + Lounge will have separate Chinese New Year menus on Feb. 9 to welcome the Year of the Fire Monkey. The Azul menu will include dishes like shrimp dumplings, duck spring rolls and branzino with Chinese eggplant, sesame and green papaya. The La Mar menu features Peruvian-Chinese specialties such as Cebiche Chifa (salmon, peanuts, ginger, wonton and sesame leche de tigre), Chinese-style lobster and white chocolate banana spring rolls. The MO Bar + Lounge plans a dim sum happy hour from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with special cocktails and dishes like pork sui mei, shrimp har gau dumplings and vegetable spring rolls. A lion dance performance will link all three restaurants at the Mandarin Oriental (500 Brickell Key Drive, Miami, 305/913-8358).
Joy, luck and prosperity in limited-edition menu at Hakkasan
At Hakkasan at Fontainebleau Miami Beach (4441 Collins Ave., Miami Beach, 786/276-1388), International Executive Chef Ho Chee Boon created a special limited-edition menu to help bring joy, luck and prosperity in 2016. Served from Feb. 5 to 14, the dishes include double-boiled fresh ginseng and chicken soup, diced Wagyu beef and pine nut golden cup, dim sum platter, wok-fry lobster in spicy truffle sauce, grilled Chilean sea bass in honey and more. The dessert and cocktail are also inspired by the Year of the Monkey: the Golden Halo dessert is a banana and peanut cake and a five-spice infused cream, caramel, chocolate and peanut topped with gold leaf. The 9 Hou cocktail has nine components representing the monkey’s ninth position on the zodiac. The cost is $138.88 per person for parties of two or more.
