Restaurants have started gearing up for the Lunar New Year, with Year of the Dragon starting on Feb. 10 and New Year celebrations lasting about two weeks. Tolo, the chef Ron Yan’s restaurant which opened in early November, will offer a special $100 per person menu for parties of six to 12 that includes classics like longevity noodles, duck confit spring rolls, jiaozi dumplings, lawei fried rice and lion’s head meatballs, typically from Yangzhou, Mr. Yan’s birthplace. Poon choi, a communal dish of seafood, pork and duck with vegetables and tofu is included, will also be served à la carte ($150 to order in advance). Mr. Yan has taken a clever approach to wines for the occasion. Working with Parcelle, the wine retailer with a shop and a wine bar nearby, where he is the chef, there will be a stunning and well-priced selection from vintages that coincide with other Years of the Dragon. They include Pio Cesare Barolo 1964, $125; Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon, 1976, $200; and Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs, 2012, $225.
Lunar New Year dinners, Feb. 9 through 24, Tolo, 28 Canal Street (Rutgers Street), tolonyc.com.
Hero Bread Is About the Fiber
Allergies drive some people into the food business. Cole Glass, who worked for NASA and many big names in tech, has an epic list of dangerous food sensitivities. But because he can have bread products, he decided to give baking a try after finding most to be nutritionally vacant and lacking in the vitamins and fiber he needed in his diet. “I didn’t want to rely just on supplements,” he said. Hero Bread is his answer, a San Francisco company that sells an array of commendably tasty breadstuffs, including loaves, tortillas, hamburger and hot dog buns and croissants. Rather good Cheddar biscuits are being introduced this week. All are produced without standard white flour, and with a mixture of resistant wheat starch, wheat protein, flax, fava bean protein and no sugar. The results are generally well-textured and high in protein and fiber. They’ve become the darlings of the keto and low-net-carb diet crowd, with celebrity endorsements. But it’s really all about the fiber: 11 to 22 grams per serving, depending on the item, and also 5 to 10 grams of protein. The croissants, for which there is a waiting list, are made by a French bakery in Sonoma County, Calif., and easily pass muster despite lacking that element of elasticity in the interior, which Mr. Glass attributes to the starch mixture they use. They do well for sandwiches. Hero Bread products have been sold nationally and used by restaurants since 2021, now shipping tens of thousands of items per week.
Hero Bread, $20.99 and up from hero.co.
Like a Mini Beef Wellington
Dominique Ansel, the Cronut king, also has a history of collaborations with restaurants resulting in one-off pastries, sandwiches and other items available on a limited basis. This weekend he’s teaming up with Hawksmoor, the English steak house near Dominique Ansel Workshop, and its executive chef, Matt Brown, to wrap a fist-size hunk of blissfully tender braised bone-in short rib seasoned with horseradish in well-burnished brioche pastry with rosemary and sea salt. Think of it like a rustic Wellington, with enough to make a meal; a warm bone marrow gravy dip and pickled onions ride shotgun. It’s $30 to take out, including hot latte tea, based on a Hawksmoor cocktail, starting at 8 a.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Bone-in Short Rib en Croûte, Jan. 26 through 28, Dominique Ansel Workshop, 17 East 27th Street, 212-901-1015, dominiqueanselworkshop.com.
Fruit-Forward French Liqueurs Without Alcohol
Mixing nonalcoholic cocktails seems to get easier every month. The French liqueurs company Giffard now offers alcohol-free versions of its lineup, which are mostly based on fruits and botanicals. Pink grapefruit, ginger, elderflower and pineapple are the choices. The Loire Valley company, founded in 1885, uses traditional maceration techniques to extract the flavors and balances the results with a touch of white wine vinegar to compensate for the lack of alcohol. They’re sweet but not cloying, and make a nice drink on ice with a splash of soda or tonic. Add an ounce or two, especially the elderflower, to nonalcoholic sparkling wine for a festive cocktail, or pour some over cut fruit.
Giffard Non-Alcoholic Liqueurs, $24.99 for 750 milliliters, at Boisson stores, boisson.co, giffard.com/en.
Where Truffles and Jalapeño Meet
The subtle funk of black truffles combined with the sting of chiles is about as likely a marriage as Kellyanne and George Conway. Truff, a six-year old company based in Huntington Beach, Calif., adds truffles to assorted condiments, notably hot sauces. Nick Guillen, a founder, who is also passionate about truffles, said his Mexican roots are a factor, but the company says these products owe their success mainly to social media. Last November, SKYY Partners, the private equity firm owned by Jay Sammons and Kim Kardashian, became a minority shareholder. Which brings us to the latest Truff hot sauce, infused with jalapeño-lime black truffle. It’s like two sauces in one: The aroma of black truffle and its tartly sweet flavor linger a bit, but then the chiles smack the palate and it takes time to recover. The olive-green condiment works on seafood or steak and in a taco.
Truff Jalapeño-Lime Black Truffle Hot Sauce, $17.98, truff.com.
Heirloom Dates Worthy of a Gift
Date night takes on another meaning with a box of, yes, the dried desert fruit. A new assortment of heirloom varieties is from Rancho Meladuco Date Farm in Newport Beach, Calif., cultivated on its farm in the Coachella Valley, and by others in California. The unpitted dates include Dayri, Amir Hajj, Halawi and Barhi, originally from the Middle East and the Americas. They vary in size and range in color from gold to nearly black, with flavors that can be spicy, fruity or honeyed. Tie the box in red ribbon, and you’ve got a Valentine’s Day gift.
Heirloom Date Box, $25 for two pounds, Rancho Meladuco Date Farm, ranchomeladuco.com.
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