Happy Lunar New Year!

Today is the Lunar New Year - The year of the Ox in Chinese zodiac animals - so I thought it was the perfect excuse for going to P.F. Chang's for lunch.  ;-)  We haven't been there in over a year with the shut down of restaurants, and it didn't disappoint.

Today was a cold, gray, wintry day in Michigan with a high of only 26 degrees.  You can definitely tell it's winter in the photo below.

When we stepped inside the door, a Lunar New Year poster greeted us, but we didn't order their alcoholic drink or dessert - too much birthday cake still at home to eat up!

But we did order a pot of their Dragon Eye Oolong tea.   Oolong means "black dragon" in Chinese. This tea is SO good.  Smoky Chinese oolong tea is blended with safflowers, and peach and apricot flavorings.  I Googled it when we got home and discovered it's blended by Revolution Tea and can be purchased from Amazon.  Guess who's going to be placing an order!!!

We ordered chicken lettuce wraps to begin our meal.

Then we each got a luncheon size order of Sesame Chicken.  To borrow the title of Alton Brown's Food Network show, that's 'Good Eats'!  If that's luncheon size, I wonder how big the dinner portion is!

With full tummy's we came home to our comfy, warm house for the remainder of the day.

F.Y.I.  The Chinese New Year is a public holiday in China and their people will get 7 days off from work from February 11 - 17th, but the festival will actually last 16 days starting from Chinese New Year's Eve to the Lantern Festival.  Red is the main color for the festival, and red Chinese lanterns are the most popular decorations.  The ox is a symbol of bravery, diligence and strength.

I read at The Cultured Cup website, in Southern China guests are often welcomed with three cups of tea in the New Year.  Each cup has a specific meaning.  The first cup is sweet, to bring "sweetness" in the New Year.

The second cup is a smoked bean tea, a blend of tea leaves, shredded carrots, orange peels, perilla seeds and sesame seeds.  It is to wish "harmony."

The third cup is normally a cup of simple green tea, offered after a meal to conclude the tea ceremony.