At Chef Chu's in Los Altos, chef-owner Lawrence Chu doesn't take any chances. He welcomes diners with candied winter melon and other fat choy candies on each banquet table instead of serving hors d'oeuvres.
Peanut- and coconut-filled glutinous rice balls, representing longevity, fill the sweet soup dessert at Sichuan Fortune House in Pleasant Hill, where chef-owner Shaobin Zhang also offers a crisp sesame pancake filled with sweet bean paste.

"The rice ball's name sounds similar to having a whole year where everything comes to fruition," explains Terry Chan, co-owner of South Sea Seafood Village in San Francisco, where the unfilled rice balls are served in a traditional red bean and tapioca soup.

South Sea's kitchen also turns out a firm, crunchy doughnut. "We call them Happy Face Doughnuts to symbolize a year full of joy," Chan says.

Sweets aren't the only edible symbols for the new year. Any food with a name that sounds similar or is a play on the Chinese words for things like luck, abundance and good fortune are prominent on Year of the Tiger menus.

Both Chu and Zhang serve a whole fried fish with a reddish sweet-and-sour sauce. "The Chinese phonetic sound for fish sounds similar to abundance and blessing, and the sauce is red for joy and luck," Chu says.