Buddha Jumping Over the Wall---DDC February Dinner

[herbacidal]

WHERE: Lee How Fook Restaurant

219 N 11th St. (Corner of 11th and Spring Sts.) Philadelphia, PA 19106

(use rear private room) link to Yahoo Map at bottom

WHEN: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 6:30 PM arrival, 7PM first course

WHAT: Chinese Multi-Course Dinner in celebration of the Year of the Ram

WHO: Followers of Buddha, and anyone else who feels like it!

WHY: Buddha jumping over the wall is pretty special, we should celebrate it!

I suppose the Year of the Ram isn’t a bad reason to have a party either.

COST: $30 per person, inclusive of tax and tip

RSVP: RSVP to Matt Lipman---- mattylip@excite.com

Final RSVPs must be received by Thursday, February 13.

After that date, withdrawals are not acceptable.

Please be quite sure of your availability by Thursday, February 13.

Sorry for the minimal time interval.

Lee How Fook is BYOB, so bring it if ya got it!

Family Style Menu

Charcuterie of Selected Chinese Favorites

Steamed and Fried Jiaozi Dumplings

Jumbo Shrimp and Walnuts Lathered in Sweet Mayonnaise

Seafood with Bean Curd Soup

Stir Fried Snow Peas with Vermicelli and Confucius’ Hair

Lobster Stir Fried with Ginger and Scallion Staring At You

Southern Fried Chicken Playing Peek-A-Boo

Ginger and Scallion Steamed Striped Bass

Longevity Noodles

Mixed Fried Rice

Plus the Random Surprise Thrown In Here and There!!

Kudos to anyone who can figure out the significance of “Buddha jumping over the wall”!

As per our newest tradition, we will be passing around a container for a voluntary Philabundance donation at the end of the night.

Full Disclosure: Herb Lau’s family has had an ownership stake in Lee How Fook for over a year, which is actually why this dinner can be put together this easily.

Link to Lee How Fook's Yahoo Map

[Holly Moore]

Looks like it's time to find out what these DDC people are all about. I'm a'going.

[herbacidal]

NOTE: Buddha Jumping Over the Wall will not be a dish at the dinner.

The per person price would have to be raised significantly to integrate such a dish, and that's only the reduced version as compared to the full menu.

In the original invitation, it was intended as a little bit of fun, a little bit of trivia.

Apologies for misconceptions/misinterpretations implied by its inclusion.

[cabrales]

Buddha Jumping Over a Wall is a famous Chinese dish ("fut teew cheung", informally translated from Cantonese). It is a dish with multiple ingredients, including abalone, sea cucumber, shark's fin and fish blubber. The ingredients differ from time to time. It is braised, typically. Included often might be certain mushrooms and, from time to time, chicken.

[herbacidal]

actually the dish is a more condensed version of an entire dinner.

someday, i may actually try the dinner.

[cabrales]

herblau -- I just performed a search on this:

http://www.meiweizhen.com.cn/meiweizhen/En...iaopiang-EN.htm

[herbacidal]

thanks cabrales.

i've seen that page, and many others like it. most refer to the fujian / fukien soup.

cantonese cuisine has a fully developed menu of the same name.

it's supposed to last a few days or so. don't reallly know much about it otherwise.

i should clarify, i don't know exactly that the fujian version is a condensed version of the entire cantonese menu, but i would suspect that given the intermingling between the two regions (right next to each other on the southeastern coast of China), that is what the soup is. guangdong province, which is where cantonese people are from, wraps around hong kong, and fujian province is just northeast of it across from taiwan.

i would also suspect that it has just been expanded further by hotels/restaurants trying to promote themselves.

[Jinmyo]

Kudos to anyone who can figure out the significance of “Buddha jumping over the wall”!

The name signifies that although the dish usually contains some meat, that Sakyamuni Buddha (erroneously regarded as vegetarian due to the 6th chapter of the Lankavatara sutra) would jump over a wall to eat it because it's irresitable.