Happy Birthday to You or halfway through Chinese New Year!

Today, the seventh day of the two week long Chinese New Year celebration, is your birthday.

Chinese tradition holds that individual birthdates are of limited significance. Consequently, the halfway point of the New Year's celebration serves as a collective birthday when everyone adds a year to their age.

To celebrate this auspicious occasion, I had dinner tonight with several of my friends from the Boulder Asian Pacific Alliance (BAPA). For those of you unfamilar with BAPA, this non-profit organizes the Boulder Asian Festival as well as the Boulder Asian Film Festival. We met for a traditional meal at the King's Land Chinese Seafood Restaurant (2200 W. Alameda Ave., #44) in Denver.

As noted in The Gyros Journey, King's Land provides some of the highest quality Cantonese-style food in the Denver metro area at rock bottom prices. Our party consisted of four adults and two children and we enjoyed an outstanding celebratory meal for less than $70 before tax and tip.

We ordered a family-style dinner off the Chinese-language portion of the menu, and started with Peking duck served two ways, in soup and served with soft steamed buns, scallions, and hoi sin sauce. The buns were puffy and piping hot, the duck was full of flavor and meaty.

As a nod to the Year of the Boar, we also had tangy and tender sweet and sour pork, followed by crisply steamed stalks of gai lan, Chinese broccoli. The children wanted noodles, so we also had an order of chow fun, thick rice noodles with beef, onions, and bean sprouts.

Seafood plays a key role in New Year's festivities, mainly due to its symbolic relationship to good luck in the coming year. The walnut shrimp were covered in a light sweet and creamy sauce that complemented the freshness and firmness of the crustaceans.

Savoring a whole fried flounder, covered with scallions and chile peppers, is a surefire way to ensure prosperity. A dish of fresh ginger-garlic lobster (pictured with the walnut shrimp peeking out from the top of the photo) was perhaps an indication that we were already on a path to riches, at least of a culinary nature.

Also, some of you have been asking us about what Chinese restaurants don't use MSG. Joey informs me that Chopsticks China Bistro (2990 W. Mississippi Ave., Denver) does not.

What's been on your Year of the Boar menu?

The Gyros Journey Makes the Best Seller List

Clay and I are very pleased to announce that we were named #3 on the Denver Post's local Nonfiction Paperback list. (Even though they did not put Clay's name in the paper-he says it is very Charlie Brownish.)

But we all know he is co-author! So, thank you for buying our book and making this possible.

Our next signing is March 25 at The Ferril House with Lighthouse Writers. There will be ethnic goodies galore.

Thanks to the Tattered Cover and everyone who came last night

Joey wrote this up to express our gratitude for everyone that participated last night:

Thanks to The Tattered Cover last night for a great event. And to Govinda's, Cafe Berlin and Cuba Cuba for the treats. Our book signing came complete with fried plaintains, an Indian vegetarian rice dish and German sausage with mustard. After these taste tempting treats, we got down to the business of the book. Thank you all for asking questions, giving us suggestions for new restaurants to review and for your interest in ethnic dining. We discovered a slow food club in Denver and also want to wish the Metro students good luck on their journalism project - it's about our book!