RICE PAPER SCISSORS

Today marks the first day of the Lunar New Year!  New to New Years?  Check our video on How To Say Happy New Year In…

Lunar New Years is very important to us because it also marks our second year in business.  We’ll be spending the day relaxing with our loved ones and resting up for our the Lucky Mission Festival, a month long Lunar New Year celebration.

For now, here is a look at New Years past.  

KK slinging Chicken Pho and Imperial Rolls at Pop Up #1, Tet Holiday Pop Up, Febraury 2011.

Valerie showing off the one item menu at Cha Ca Va Long, Hanoi February 2012.

Let this new year bring you good health and good food. 

- RPS

Spotted: Amanda of Duc Loi and Duc Loi Kitchen on the Mission Merchants website

<3

(via Ken Ken Ramen)

Lunar New Year Tradition #1: Clean House

Before the new year (Feb 10), it’s custom to get a haircut, new outfit and to clean your house to start anew and prepare for better luck in the coming year.

We spent this week getting haircuts (thanks to Public Barber Salon and Joys #2 Hair Salon) and a new Splendid dress from Industrie Denim. In our office, we stacked our stools, knolled things on our desks and swept the floor to make more room for good luck in the Year of the Snake.

There’s still a few more days until February 10th, so we hope you use the Lunar New Year as another reason to start fresh.

We love how cuisines can mesh together and evolve to become it’s own thing. The dishes from our Dungeness Crab House took from not only Viet-Cajun cuisine, but also traditional Vietnamese and New Orleans specialities.

For example, the Crawfish Etouffee Bouchee (pictured below) was a combination of the Vietnamese Pate Chaud (puffy pastry filled with meat) and Creole etoufee (thick seafood stew) - but made with a thick crawfish and sea snail gravy.

See more photos our Viet-Cajun dishes here.

Photos by Patrick Kawahara

We’re celebrating the Year of the Snake by throwing the Lucky Mission Festival, a month-long series of events that reinterpret, reimagine and reintroduce the traditions and foods of the Lunar New Year.

Meanwhile, adding more booze and dance music along the way!

We’re kicking things off with the Good Luck Biagarten, a pop-up beer garden and mess hall this Saturday, February 9th.

Also on the list: a family-style dinner, potsticker class and a pop dance party complete with Chinese lion dancers. More details below.

May this year bring you good health, wealth and pop-ups,

Valerie, Katie, Akia, Emily and Zoë

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Good Luck Biagarten
Vietnamese beer garden and mess hall

Where: Saturday, February 9, 2013
When: 6-10pm
Location: Florida Street Cafe, 710 Florida Street

Bia = beer in Vietnamese.

To kick off the Lunar New Year celebrations, we’re throwing a mess-hall slash indoor biagarten inspired by Vietnam streetside bars. On the menu: dishes that will bring you good luck in the new year. More here.

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Tết Holiday Banquet
prix fixe Asian family-style meal

Canceled due to unforeseen circumstances.

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Potsticker Party
Potsticker making class, complete with snacks, beer and tea

Where: Good Eggs, 530 Hampshire, #301
When: Sunday, February 17th, 4-7pm
Tickets: $40 / purchase here

Get down on this age old tradition: a potsticker making party.  Learn how to roll and fold two types of dumplings (pork and squash) while snacking on Vietnamese sticky rice and beer. You’ll leave with new skills, extra potstickers and hopefully some new friends.

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Lion Dance Party
classic party jams and Chinese lion dancers

Where: Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa Street 
When: Friday, February 22, 8pm-1am. Doors and dinner at 8pm. Music at 9pm.
Tickets: $10 (advance), $15 (door) / 21+ / purchase here

Rage like it’s the Year of the Snake. Also, get down on classic party jams spun by DJ Spinnerty of Grown Kids Radio as well as Vietnamese street food, a full bar and Chinese lion dancers.

Date: Saturday, February 9, 2013
Time: 6-10pm
Location: Florida Street Cafe, 710 Florida Street

To kick off the Lunar New Year celebrations, we’re throwing a mess-hall slash indoor beer garden inspired by Vietnam streetside bars. (Bia = beer in Vietnamese.)

The menu consists of items that bring good luck in the new year — such as Ham Sui Gok, fried mochi dumplings stuffed with pork and shrimp, and Vietnamese Imperial Rolls. Since they look like ancient money, they’re eaten to bring in more bucks.

Our beer list will contain our favorite local and imported brews. A-la Vietnam, we’re offering beers by-the-bucket so you don’t even have to get off your little red stools to get another cold one. Boom.

Menu

(v) vegetarian (vg) vegan (g) gluten-free

Appetizers

Taro Chips (v) - $5

Cha Gio - Imperial Rolls (g)- $7
fried rice paper rolls with shrimp, pork, cabbage and taro. served with lettuce, herbs and nuoc cham.
Long in shape, these rolls are like gold bars. Wealth in the new year!

Ham Sui Gok - Fried Mochi Dumplings - $8 
filled with ground pork and shrimp
Since they look like ancient Chinese money, you eat them for wealth in the new year.

Banh Chung - Tet Sticky Rice Cake - $6
sticky rice with ground pork and mung beans, steamed in banana leaves
The filling resembles the different layers of the earth - a humble representation of the earth we live in.

Mains

Buddha’s Delight (vg) - $8
cellophane noodle stir-fry with tofu, shitakke mushrooms, woodear mushrooms, lily buds and roasted ginko nuts
A vegetarian meal is often eaten to counterbalance to the richness of the new year festivities.

Pho Ga - Chicken Pho - $12
fresh rice noodles in housemade chicken broth, served with poached chicken. served with shaved onions, scallions, jalapenos, culantro and limes.
The broth is made from whole chickens, giving rise to prosperity, family, and joy. Fresh rice noodles symbolize long life!

Thit Heo Kho - Caramelized Pork and Egg Rice Plate - $11
spareribs braised in star anise, coconut water and fish sauce, served with a soft egg and broken rice
This classic Vietnamese New Year dish, represents family with whole eggs, symbols of life and fertility.

Saturday, January 26th

7pm

Gung Ho Restaurant - 680 8th Street (at Townsend)

$65 / Tickets here

Crab season ain’t over yet — and we’re not letting it pass without doing it up Cajun-style (and just in time for Mardi Gras!)

Our next installment of Dungeness Crab House is inspired by Vietnamese Cajun seafood restaurants, popular in San Jose and Garden Grove in Southern California — cities with large Vietnamese populations.

Seems random, but like every fusion of cultures, there’s a backstory. After immigrating to the States, many Vietnamese families settled in the Gulf Coast, where “boiling points” or crawfish houses reign supreme.

Like any good New Orleanian, the Vietnamese also have an affinity for rice, spice, and seafood. Inspired by Creole cuisine, Viet-Cajun joints came to be — with an added Southeast twist of lemongrass, muoi tieu chanh (a lemon, salt, and pepper dip) and garlic noodles to go along with boiled crustaceans bathed in butter.

These restaurants are known in Vietnamese as “quan nhau” — basically, a restaurant where you can get crunked.

So in true Vietnamese and Louisianan spirit, come dine and be sure to leave the table with empty crab shells and beer bottles — always a sign of a good time.

Tickets are $65 and can be purchased here.

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Menu

Crawfish Étouffée Bouchée

thick crawfish and sea snail gravy served in a puff pastry

Louisiana Shrimp, Pork and Pomelo Salad

with cucumbers, mint, and fried shallots

Southeast Cajun Crab

1/2 Dungeness crab and corn simmered in lemongrass and Old Bay Seasoning. served with a trio of sauces: tamarind, garlic butter, and salt-pepper-lime.

Garlic Noodles

housemade oyster sauce, butter, garlic and topped with Grana Padano cheese

Grilled Okra

with a housemade XO sauce

Bananas Foster & Beignets

rum bananas, fried beignets and fish sauce ice cream

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More details and tickets here

We started 2013 with a New Year’s Day Brunch a new pop-up location: Whiz Burgers, located on 18th and Van Ness.

For a while this location intrigued us. We weren’t sure who owned it or how to approach them to do a pop-up. Our curiosity pushed us to ask anyway.

We met John Kim, whose father owns Whiz Burger, one day at the take-out window. John told us that Whiz Burgers has been around since 1955. Twenty years ago, his father owned a liquor store on 14th and saw that Whiz Burgers was for sale — so he bought it. It’s been run by the Kim’s ever since.

Since Whiz Burgers was closed for New Year’s, the Kim’s allowed us to pop-up in the space for our brunch. “I wanted to support another small business,” John said.

Thanks to the Kim’s for letting us pop-up and everyone who came out to start 2013 with us!

And don’t forget to get a fresh banana shake and seasoned fries from the Whiz sometime this year :)

Photos by Andria Lo
See full set here
More photos from Doc Pop here

This year, we were lucky enough to have our New Year’s Day Brunch photographed by Doctor Popular.

He’s a fellow Mission District dweller who does everything from DJing to building LEGO dioramas.

While hanging out with us, he got behind-the-scene shots inside the Whiz Burgers.

Using his Minolta SLR and rolls of expired Konica film, he captured the vibes of the iconic burger joint.

See more photos on Doctor Popular’s website here.

Our visit from Anthony Bourdain aired on TV

Traveled to Vietnam

Landed our first office and commercial kitchen (where we did an awesome shoot with Refinery29)

Had our first interns

Who helped us produce our spread in Food & Wine

And a music video

Which we made to try to get voted into the SF Street Food Festival (it worked!)

Afterwards, went on tour with The Bold Italic (and Allan, who snapped this pic)

Came home and gave Eddie Huang a tour of the Asian side of the Mission

Squeezed in a few end-of-summer camping trips

Which inspired The Camp-In movie night

Brought back the Dungeness Crab House

And said goodbye to the Underground Market, which started it all.

2012 was an adventure. We look forward to 2013 being a year of more first’s, popping up in crazy locations, traveling and learning new dishes — and doing it for all of you guys.

Come celebrate the beginning of 2013 at our New Year’s Day Brunch tomorrow at Whiz Burgers!

Cheers,

Valerie + Katie + the RPS team