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 and 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.
