Celebrate the Lunar New Year All Week at Bar Chinois
Monday January 31, 2022
The Lunar New Year is Tuesday, February 1, but Bar Chinois (455 I Street) will be celebrating all week long! As a matter of fact, Esquire just published “This Lunar New Year Aligns with an Asian-American Cocktail Renaissance” featuring Bar Chinois’ very own Dean Mosones and Chef Tim Ma. From the article:
Even well-intended descriptors like “authentic” navigate a difficult path of assumptions, expectations, and stereotypes, as Dean Mosones, a co-owner at Bar Chinois, notes. “How are you going to tell me that I, as a Filipino American, am appropriating or misappropriating Filipino culture when the country used to be an American colony?” he asks. “We are the definition of conquered people trying to find our way to fit in. Let us be. We eat with a fork and spoon. We have the Latin alphabet. We crave Spam. What’s enough? Just let us be.”
Tim Ma, a D.C. chef who co-created Chefs Stopping AAPI Hate, tilts optimist on these questions. “Our generation is leaning more towards celebration that’s not in banquet halls with Chinese people but in bars with everyone. It’s becoming a little more Cinco de Mayo, a little less Asian ancestry,” he says. “As a touchpoint for non-Asians to dive into the culture, that’s a good thing.”
Chef Ma is a co-winner of MVT CID’s 2021 Community Stakeholder of the Year Award along with Chef Danny Lee of Mandu for their collective efforts to combat hate against the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
Visit Bar Chinois next week to enjoy their special cocktail and food menu celebrating the Lunar New Year!
