Bites & Sips: Fresh Chinese Mash-Ups and New Matcha Moves

Innovation is the lifeblood of menu development, with countless new items invigorating restaurant brands and energizing the industry as a whole. While many of these may not evolve into long-term trends with major-league status, they still represent valuable niche opportunities to perk up offerings and generate buzz. Each month, we’re serving up a platter of ideas that aim to create a connection with customers and deliver a promotional pop.

Menu Update I: Chinese Mash-Ups

For many Americans, Chinese restaurants were their first introduction to global cuisine, and last year, Chinese Menu Online, an ordering platform for Chinese and Asian operators, analyzed more than 7 million orders to determine the 20 most-ordered items that account for their enduring popularity. The top three were egg rolls, General Tso’s chicken and crab Rangoon.

Crab Rangoon is not of Chinese origin; rather, it’s an only-in-America mash-up that found its way onto menus in the 1950s thanks to Trader Vic’s, the OG tiki bar concept that boasted a Polynesian-inspired menu. The original item stuffed a wonton wrapper with cream cheese, crab and seasoning along with a dip, typically sweet-and-sour sauce. Fanciful and inauthentic, its crunchy-creamy texture and dippability were copied on a broad scale by Chinese restaurateurs, who made it a menu staple of their own and laid the groundwork for next-gen iterations.

At MuNi in Kansas City, Mo., the small plates listing leads with Chorizo Rangoon, which, as the name implies, stuffs fried wontons with sausage, scallions and the requisite cream cheese. At James Beard–recognized Diane’s Place in Minneapolis, the Crab Rangoon Danish replaces the wonton with pastry; and Via 313, a growing Texas chain serving Detroit-style pizza, teamed up with Tso Chinese for a promotional Crab Rangoon Pizza, featuring blue crab and cream cheese with wonton crisps, scallions and sweet chile sauce.

While shrimp toast didn’t crack the Top 20, it is nonetheless having a menu moment. Likely originating in Southern Chinese kitchens, the dish typically combines minced shrimp or shrimp paste with bread that may be toasted or fried. It has transitioned from dim sum carts to broader menus and become the object of culinary reinvention.

In January, a local magazine declared the item “booming” at Twin Cities’ operations of all stripes. It noted standouts at award-winning operations like Hai Hai, where fried shrimp mousse on a slice of bread is topped with shredded coconut and served with chile jam and slivered jalapeños. Vinai’s version layers shrimp-and-pork paste on Texas toast and is finished with sweet-spicy apricot spread. And this summer, it made the chef’s tasting menu at Jinya Holdings’ new flagship concept Jinya West Hollywood, where Shrimp Toast tops a toasted shrimp cake sandwich with optional indulgences of uni or caviar.

Menu Update II: Matcha Madness

Credit: Ember & Vine

Matcha is busting out of the beverage menu with fresh food applications, like Matcha Overnight Oats at newly opened Ember & Vine.

The runaway growth of matcha, the ceremonial green tea of Japanese origin that has sparked a feeding frenzy on menus, has been widely reported on both conventional and social media. In fact, a recent story in Eater suggested that we now live in a “post-matcha world.” If that is true, operators haven’t gotten the memo. A quick menu scan reveals that its use has been evolving rapidly to encompass a wider range of food and beverage items.

Matcha has been making waves beyond its tea and coffee strongholds to score points in the soft drink category, especially of the new-age variety. FifthSip, a Vietnamese coffee specialist in New York City, offered a refreshing Kumquat Matcha Tonic, Dunkin’ featured a limited-time Matcha Limeade Refresher and London-based Black Sheep Coffee menus Matcha Lemonade.

In line with the cold-foam craze that has swept the coffee segment, matcha Dalgona has been appearing at K-Cafes (Korean coffeehouses popping in the U.S.). Dalgona is a Korean specialty that typically whips instant coffee and sugar into a caramel mousse–like topping. By contrast, matcha is whipped with cream and egg white for a pale green, camera-ready foam cloud.

Food applications have expanded as well, largely shifting from sweets like soft serve and pastry to savories. Diners at newly opened Ember & Vine in Coral Springs, Fla., can start the day with Matcha Overnight Oats. The winter menu at Kura Sushi included Matcha-Coated Salmon that covered the fish in housemade matcha umami oil, and there was also Matcha Mayo Caterpillar Roll with a matcha mayo drizzle and matcha furikake. And at New York’s Okiboru House of Udon, Matcha Zaru Udon comprises homemade udon noodles infused with premium matcha powder and served on ice with a side of cold dipping broth.

Menu Update III: Nibbles and Bits

Credit: Sweetgreen

Over the summer, Sweetgreen teamed up with tinned seafood purveyor Fishwife to serve a limited-time Niçoise salad, complete with a tin of olive–packed tuna.

Summer’s end brought some notable promotions, like the Sweetgreen x Fishwife collab on Summer Niçoise that presented the limited-edition salad with a custom, co-branded tin of olive oil–packed tuna. Tinned fish, a staple in many countries, has had a rocky road here, and this pairing may serve as a door opener to broader use.

In a truly outside-the-cup promotion, Ziggi’s Coffee ran a week-long Philadelphia Everything Bagel Latte. The liquid play on the morning food classic was created in collaboration with the iconic Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand, topping an iced latte with cream cheese foam and everything bagel seasoning.

In addition to the annual end-of-summer onslaught of pumpkin spice, the approach of autumn also brings a variety of special offers meant to ease diners through the seasonal transition. White Castle is rolling out a promotional menu and merch in collaboration with Garage Beer that promises a fresh take on beer cheese. A White Castle exclusive, menu items include Garage Beer Cheese Sausage Slider and Garage Beer Cheese Fries, while merchandise features Garage Beer hats, totes, ice buckets and more.

And autumn in the Heartland means the return of a comfort-food pairing not seen elsewhere: the unlikely combination of beef-and-bean chili and cinnamon rolls. The latter are often dipped in the former to yield “an oddly satisfying” result. In some Great Plains locations, the seasonal special reportedly runs from fall right through spring, a unique example of an enduring regional favorite like cheese curds in the Midwest or Biloxi-style pizza topped with French dressing.