Happy Lunar New Year, Oklahoma!

Tulsa, OKC chefs couldn't wait to start the celebration

Whether you’re celebrating Tet, Seollal, or some other holiday based on the lunisolar calendar today, Happy New Year!

Tis the season when quantity of firecrackers often outweighs quality. When the only thing passed with more anticipation than the small plates are the red envelopes. With Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras falling right in behind the launch of this festive season, I decided to get started a little early.

Field work for the upcoming book helped me get a jump on the celebration during a trip to Tulsa last week. Turns out T-Town makes a delicious daytrip. First was lunch at NATV, the newly minted James Beard Award semifinalist in Broken Arrow, then drinks at Elliot Nelson’s Bar Serra, setting up a Lunar New Year pop-up inside a coffeehouse under the influence of a chefs collective.

Long story short: Lunch at NATV won’t be my last meal there. My first taste of chef Jacque Siegfried’s food was so promising, I relish the chance to return. Highlights included Blackberry Mint Lemonade, fry bread (with herb butter, blackberry wojapi, and white bean hummus) a Wild Rice bowl and Seared Trout.

Over in Utica Square we found Bar Serra stuffed between a pair of tall stores, which likely protects it from the sizzle of summer sunsets. The visit was practically a drive-by incident, but the balance and viscosity of the Rosemary Ginger G&T won’t soon be forgotten.

The main reason for the trip was to check in with chef Colin Sato and the gang at Et al, who were hosting Rabbit Hole Food and Cocktails of Fayetteville, Ark., on a collaborative Lunar New Year Pop-up. The menu for the one-night Hong Kong Diner concept was concentric cultural circles looping together culinary inspiration from countries celebrating on or around the Lunar New Year.

Wok-fired tomatoes dance on a Thai omelet. Together, they shared space on the same plate as sausage, nham khao browns and Jaew Som from Laos. Okonomi Sausage Rolls from Japan and Lao Sausage Biscuits were among the pastries. Thai soup dumplings and Chinese “cinnamon toast” offered whimsy.

Honesty compels me to report the most memorable item was the one that surprised me the most. The Okonomi Sausage Roll was a fussy bit of street food, but it was sheer palate pornography. Typically, when I see bonito flakes are coming I subconsciously brace for heavy-handedness the same way I do when truffle oil is coming due.  In this case, the flakes provided an extra layer of texture that fit snuggly between the crunchy pastry and the crispy sausage skin. All three surfed the wave of outpouring hot pork fat with contrasting panache for which my trembling palate was loathe to lose to gravity and the digestion it feeds. Beni shoga, bulldog sauce and green onion filled in the margins to create a wall of flavor.

That said, the Gailan (Chinese broccoli raab) was absolutely stunning. Steamed then stir-fried with garlic slices in a sake sauce. NomNomNomNom. If any note was out of tune it was the grated daikon in the otherwise delicious Green Tea Soba bowl. For me, daikon’s dissonance is inharmonious without its crispy flesh. Upon further stirring with the noodles and the broth made of triple-umami genmai  awase cha, the daikon offered a pleasant fragrant note, but crunch-junkies like me tend to focus on what we’re missing when it comes to texture – especially in soup.

Et al is owned and operated by a collective of chefs, offering a variety of dining services at Foolish Things Coffee Company in downtown Tulsa. Foolish Things operates daily Monday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Et al does its Japanese Breakfast popups on Sunday mornings and Dumpling Night services on Wednesdays. Weekends are a rotating schedule of pop-up programs including, Bischix (biscuits), Compaignon (French cuisine), Butter Bar (desserts and sweets), and Sufra (Eastern Mediterranean cuisine) …

Once I’ve dined my way through their concepts, I’ll have a full report for premium subscribers.

If you think the Hong Kong Diner popup was a great way to kickstart the Lunar New Year holiday season, you’d be right. But if you think it was the first and only way I kickstarted the Lunar New Year, you’d be wrong.

On Monday, Ma Der Lao Kitchen was the stage for a de facto Lunar New Year pre-party when chefs Jeff Chanchaleune and Yia Vang compared and contrasted their Lao and Hmong cuisines and James Beard Award nominations.

Chanchaleune, the Ma Der owner/chef, is currently celebrating his third nomination for the Lao cuisine he’s been serving since 2021.  Vang, who owns two restaurants in Minneapolis (Vinai and Union Hmong Kitchen), is the host of Feral on Outdoor Channel. He has three Beard nominations since 2021. On Monday they mixed and matched their Lao and Hmong cultures to produce a pop-up menu ideal for the season.

My pregame to the pregame for Lunar New Year included Benjamin Bison Tartare, Berkshire Pork Jowl Satay, Chicken Thigh in a spicy lemongrass Thai Chili, Maggi sauce and squid skewered with scallions.

Let me know in the comments if and how you are celebrating the Lunar New Year this year!

Stay warm and dry on Sunday, and look for a post from me about the latest developments in the Swadley’s Bar-B-Q/Foggy Bottom Kitchen Scandal, and on Monday news about a major rebrand coming in two weeks to the 405 diningscape.