Spice Market Celebrates Chinese New Year and Welcomes The Year of The Rabbit

ATLANTA (via Atlanta Dish -January 18, 2011) – Spice Market, located inside the W Atlanta-Midtown, is hosting a Chinese New Year celebration to commemorate this important Chinese and Southeast Asian holiday for guests with symbolic food and drink. On Thursday, February 3, the restaurant will offer Chinese New Year-inspired cocktails, a special Bento Box to mark the occasion, and prizes to complete the meal.
At the bar, Tsing Tao beer will be available for $5 per bottle and there will be three different types of complimentary dumplings prepared by Chef Shaun Suter and served all evening long. Two special cocktails will also be offered on Chinese New Year: the Strawberry Firecracker ($8), which contains fresh strawberries, basil, Thai chili, vodka and Cointreau and is garnished with Pop Rocks for a festive twist since firecrackers are an important part of the holiday celebration, and a Mandarin Orange Martini ($7).
In addition to Spice Market’s regular a la carte menu, a special Bento Box will be offered to guests for $30 that evening. The Bento Box includes coconut sticky rice; butternut squash soup; fragrant mushroom egg rolls with galangal emulsion; spicy Shanghai noodles with chilled silken tofu, garlic and herbs; duck curry or wok fried grouper with Napa cabbage, water chestnuts and cucumber; and tangerine sorbet. These items have symbolic meaning in Chinese culture:
· Spring rolls symbolize wealth because their shape is similar to gold bars.
· Noodles represent a long life; an old superstition says that it's bad luck to cut them.
· On New Year’s Eve, it is customary to serve a fish at the end of the evening meal, symbolizing a wish for abundance in the coming year.
· Tangerines and oranges are passed out freely during Chinese New Year as the words for tangerine and orange sound like luck and wealth, respectively.

For a sweet finale to the Chinese New Year celebration, each guest will receive a red fortune cookie (this is a unique twist on the traditional red envelopes that are usually given out for Chinese New Year to symbolize good luck). These fortune cookies will contain discounts for Spice Market such as a free appetizer or dessert, 25% off your entire check, 50% off wine, or buy-one-get-one entrees. These offers will only be valid on a return visit.

404-724-2550 or visit www.spicemarketatlanta.com. '

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