Chinese food on New Year’s Eve

January 2, 2012 by DickH Posted in Greater Lowell, Lowell 3 Comments

There’s a group on Facebook called You Know You’re From Lowell When . . . and it currently has 5308 members who post regularly about life in Lowell in the not-to-distant past. This Saturday, I tossed out a relatively innocuous observation about the Lowell tradition of eating Chinese food on New Years’ Eve and invited folks to share the name of their favorite Chinese restaurant. The thread now has more than 70 replies and continues to grow.

While many of the comments don’t name particular establishments and quite a few poke fun of my misspelling of “Chinese food” as “Chinese foot” – can anyone teach me how to edit a Facebook post? – some trends were apparent:

Many miss “the old Cathay Garden”
Dracut’s Lo Kai got 4 positive comments and 5 negative ones
The Jade East (is it still open?) received 4 positive mentions
Gold Star in Oakland Square was liked by 3 respondents
Wah Sang on Chelmsford St, Wu loo Ming in Billerica, Green Bamboo in Kearney Square and China Star on Broadway all got 2 mentions
Those mentioned once include Chop Sticks Express on River Rd, Lin Garden, Cathay Wok on Bridge St and Feng Shui on Rte 110 in Chelmsford

3 Responses to Chinese food on New Year’s Eve

  1. Nancy P says:

    The only way I have been able to fix a post, is to delete it and put it back up. Pain to do, but I haven’t found any way to correct it otherwise. Copy and pasting form word is the way I go to prevent spelling misses.

  2. PaulM says:

    Couple of years ago, on the spur of the moment my family decided to order Chinese food for New Year’s Eve. Mistake. The wait was two or three hours, we were told at Wah Sang on Chelmsford St. People had put in orders days ahead. We tried a couple of other places and found similar back ups. Finally, we landed at a Chinese place at the shopping center off Plain Street. Waited 30 minutes. Took the food home. Not good.

    As a kid, I would go to Cathay Garden on Lwl-Lawr Blvd with my family. I don’t remember getting take-out in those days. Also when younger a few times went to the upstairs Chinese restaurant on Merrimack Street, maybe called Chin Lee’s? During high school years in Dracut the Lo Kai was a favorite gathering place for the then-novelty Pu Pu Platter sampler of appetizers. Hong and Kong in Chelmsford was an occasional choice. Current preference is Wah Sang on Chelmsford St.