The first year of moving from home into college comes amidst a flurry of anxieties surrounding classes, clubs and dorm room essentials, overshadowing one significant holiday — birthdays. During a time usually spent with family, friends and loved ones, it can be difficult to maintain the excitement of turning one year closer to being able to legally drink at Rocco’s Tavern, especially in an environment as unfamiliar as doing your laundry in the residence halls for the first time.
But it doesn’t have to be. Food as a tradition is often ignored in exchange for worrying about what to wear and who to hang out with. For me, food is at the top of my list of important cultural traditions. Having been raised Chinese-American, I place great importance on food because it was the easiest way to connect with my culture without having to go through Kumon lessons and Saturday Chinese school, and it remains important today.
Though Chinese celebrations can end in cake, the most standard birthday dish is a bowl of noodles — yī miàn, or longevity noodles, typically served iin a soup. A dish that my parents still insist takes precedence on the table during special days — “long noodles for long life” — can take any form, dried or mixed, as long as you don’t perform the cultural taboo of cutting the noodles, which symbolizes cutting a life short.
Traditional birthday foods also include red eggs, which are dyed the color of luck. Eggs represent happiness and prosperity. Celebrations also include longevity buns (shòutáo bao) filled with lotus seed paste, shaped and dyed to resemble mini peaches. Fish is also symbolically significant in Chinese culture, as the word fish (yú) is similar to the word meaning “surplus” and is eaten to welcome wealth. Similarly, dumplings also suggest wealth and prosperity, as their shape resembles ancient Chinese money.
Longevity buns and red eggs may be difficult to find on campus, but straight down Gayley Avenue sits an unassuming Chinese spot named iHome Kitchen Chinese Dumpling House. The entrance is adorned with red paper lanterns, and after choosing your table, the hostess will encourage you to either mobile order from your table or walk up to the counter to choose your dish. On my 19th birthday, I visited the restaurant and ordered the spicy beef noodle soup, or niú ròu miàn, with an order of pork xiaolongbao, thin dumplings filled with rich bone broth.
The beef noodle soup arrived first, steaming as it sat on the table. Sitting in a large black bowl, a long tangle of noodles topped with halved bok choy, chunks of beef, sliced green onions and a sparse scattering of red chilis marinated in a hearty orange-brown beef soup. While the broth was spot on with its five spice flavor, featuring star anise as its heavy hitter and complemented by cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns and fennel, the rest of the dish paled in comparison. The noodles were frozen and a little doughy after being boiled for too long. The chunks of beef were tough instead of tender, but they were serviceable.
Next came the xiaolongbao, served in a custom metal steaming basket and a round of parchment paper. Similar to the noodles, they fell a little short of expectations. Xiaolongbao is characterized by its extremely thin wrapping, but these skins were thicker and the soup inside wasn’t as piping hot as it should’ve been. The pork was also mediocre and noticeably frozen. A notable plus for broke college students, however, was that they served generous portions; I walked out of lunch with my leftover noodles for a midnight snack.
For dinner, I went to KazuNori: The Original Hand Roll Bar, just a few stores down from the dumpling house. While Japanese instead of Chinese, hand rolls predominantly feature fish, so I counted it in my book. I ordered the four-hand roll set menu, which came with toro, yellowtail, sea bream and crab, each tucked into tight rolls. The sushi rice was warm and subtly sweet, and the fish was extremely fresh and tender. Both of these elements were perfectly wrapped in crisp seaweed paper. Texture is a big player here. The slight temperature difference between the rice and the fish was elevated by the crunch of the nori. After only 30 minutes in and out — the chefs here start rolling your order the minute you’re seated at the square, dimly lit bar — KazuNori marked a grand end to my 19th birthday, far exceeding the quality of the food at iHome.
But mediocre Chinese food didn’t ruin my birthday — far from it, in fact. Neither did the fact that my dinner was Japanese mar the tradition. Food is a vessel for memory, and in the place of meals with my family at home, getting to eat noodles, dumplings and fish was enough to satisfy the part of me that is a die-hard loyalist to my culture. I’ve ensured long life, wealth and prosperity — at least until my 20th birthday. It’s difficult to make any day perfect, but finding familiarity in your culture in any form is one step closer to easing birthdays away from home.
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Featured Image via Adobe Stock
