DanDan Hosting Regional Chinese Dinners
Specialty tasting menus will highlight cuisine from seven different provinces.
Site of DanDan, 360 E. Erie St. Photo taken on October 5, 2020 by Mariiana Tzotcheva
DanDan is known to feature a wide variety of dishes on its Chinese-American menu, journeying beyond egg rolls and lo mein to showcase regional fare such as Sichuan pork dumplings, Cantonese chow fun and Singapore noodles, a dish which actually originated in Hong Kong.
Starting later this month, the restaurant, 360 E. Erie St., will take that practice one step further, launching a series of limited-time menus focused on exploring cuisines from seven different Chinese provinces.
The series will touch on Sichuan, Hunan, Canton (Guangdong), Fujian, Zhejiang, Shandong and Jiangsu, inviting guests to experience the unique tastes and traditions of the world’s most populous country, bite by bite.
The special menus will be spread out over most of the coming year, each lasting two to three days and featuring four, shareable courses for two people ($80). The first, highlighting Sichuan cuisine, will be available Jan. 23 through 25.
The peppercorn-laced Sichuan menu includes chuanbei liangfen, a cold noodle dish with numbing hot sauce; paigu mian, or pork spare rib soup, flavored with orange peel and Sichuan pickles and ma la zha yu, a whole fried sea bass served with fermented soybean sauce and herbs.
Next month, a special menu for the Lunar New Year will be available on Feb. 9 and 10. The series will also feature Hunan, known for its super-spicy food, from March 19 through 21; Canton, also known as Guangdong, from April 23 through 25; Fujian from May 21 through 23; Zhejiang’s seafood-heavy cuisine from Sept. 24 through 26; Shandong, a coastal province, from Oct. 22 through 24; and Jiangsu from Nov. 19 through 21.
“DanDan has ordered the regional menus like a travel map, starting with Sichuan and ending with Jiangsu, just as one would if they were traversing the country themselves,” the restaurant said in a release.
DanDan will continue to offer its regular menu alongside the rotating regional menus.
Reservations for the series are strongly recommended, and are available to book online or by calling (414) 488-8036.
Chefs Dan Jacobs and Dan Van Rite opened DanDan in 2016 with the goal of “bringing chef-driven Chinese food with a midwestern sensibility to Milwaukee.” The five-time James Beard semifinalists later opened EsterEv, a fine-dining concept, in the same building.
In the coming months, EsterEv is planning to reopen at a standalone location in Bay View.
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