Catherine Barr and Todd Wong auction off a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label at the 2008 Gung Haggis Fat Choy. Image from gunghaggisfatchoy.com
If you’re looking for something truly unique-to-Vancouver to do tomorrow night, why not spend the evening at one of Vancouver’s most famous cultural fusion events, the annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy Chinese New Year Dinner at Chinatown’s Floata Seafood Restaurant.
The annual dinner fuses two seemingly disparate events—Chinese New Year (which comes on February 14 in 2010) and the birth of Scotland’s “national poet” Robbie Burns (January 25).
The brain child of Vancouverite Todd Wong, the dinner may have begun simply to celebrate the close proximity of the two events, but it has since evolved into a symbol of our city’s ability to combine disparate cultures in creative, untraditional ways.
This year’s Gung Haggis Fat Choy Dinner serves 400+ guests a 10-course Scottish/Chinese banquet buffet, along with loads of live entertainment, including music from Lan Tung and her trio, the Birds of Paradox, an excerpt from playwright Marcus Youssef’s Ali & Ali and the Axis of Evil, bagpipers, little Scottish-Chinese-Canadian dancers, and the Gung Haggis Pipes & Drums.
There are tickets left for the Sunday, January 31 dinner, but you must pick them up from Todd Wong before the dinner. Call 778-846-7090 to purchase tickets. Tickets are $65 per person; discounts available for children and students. Get more ticket info at the Gung Haggis Fat Choy blog.
6:31 am
I’m unreasonably excited about this. It’s the first time I have a ticket.
4:59 pm
raincoaster, I hope you’ll come back and share your experience with us!
6:50 pm
2011 Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner
January 30th, Sunday
Floata Restaurant
Vancouver Chinatown
This year’s theme is HAPA-ness!
- with many half-Asian performers, including:
- actor Patrick Gallagher (Coach Tanaka in Glee, Da Vinci Code, Atilla the Hun in Night at the Museum, bartender in Sideways, Master and Commander)
- fiddler Jocelyn Pettit – a 15 year old sensation, recently opened for Battlefield Band in Vancouver.
- film maker Jeff Chiba Stearns (What Are You Anyways) gives a peek at his new documentary film “One Big Hapa Family”
- Highland dancing brothers Aidan and Quinn Huang
+ Brad Cran – Vancouver poet laureate
+ Joe MacDonald bagpiper/musician
+ Gung Haggis Pipes & Drums
+ lots of singalongs and surprises
+ deep-fried haggis wonton!