Dragon Shrimp

As you know, it's the first week of year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac and today Big J, kids and I went out for dinner with family and friends.  The restaurant we went to had a new year's lobster dinner.

In Chinese, the word for lobster is literally "Dragon Shrimp".  Thus the special menu item.

Lobster: Traditional Spelling

Practically every table ordered it.

We ordered many of the traditional New Year's food items: lobster, squab, lamb with bamboo shoots and dried bean curd, spicy beef, clams, noodles, fish, fried rice and veggies and a sweet dessert soup.

The symbolism: Lobster for the dragon year and plus it's red when cooked, squab for peace, fish for abundance, noodles for long life, bamboo shoots for wealth, dried bean curd for happiness.  Even the foods which were not symbolic had symbolic items thrown in.  Our spicy beef also had peanuts which mean long life.

I meant to take pictures of the food, but forgot to charge the batteries and as always, the camera conked out when it was picture time.

The food was quite yummy.  Unfortunately, the restaurant was super-busy and the dishes were veeery slow in coming, so we ended up just eating half the meal.

I still managed to wear red though:

This is a hair scarf which was quite slippery so I used one of my trusty scarf pins to hold it together.