This post originally appeared in the issue of The Move on December 28, 2020, a place where editors of Eater can reveal their recommendations and trial tips – sometimes thoughtful, sometimes strange, but always someone who wants to. Join now.
This year, as I have been doing for years, I will be eating fast food and champagne on New Year’s Eve. A Shake Shack has just opened in my area, so maybe I’ll get it … but again, the 2018 Panda Express hit the right note, and I would be very open to a repeat performance. I do not know what fast food options you have in your area, but chances are you have a few. And I highly recommend joining my little tradition on Thursday night.
In the Before Times, my argument was simple. Restaurants are usually old on New Year’s Eve, and in any case, those special menus are generally too expensive. Ticket parties are never as enjoyable as they promise. So we get it at home, but after the holidays I definitely do not work a big meal to cook (and clean) again. Fast-food pick-ups, on the other hand, are inexpensive, require no advance planning, and are enough out of the rhythm of my typical dinner routine that it still feels like I’m indicating the occasion – especially if I add the necessary bubbly.
Champagne – or actually any dry, sparkling white wine you want – goes so well with fried foods. Like soda, cut the bubbles through the fat inherent in a fast food meal. I find it works especially well with fast food fried chicken, whether it’s from a Popeyes kitchen box, a McDonald’s nugget order, or a clamshell with Panda Express orange chicken. To really lean into the high-low energy I grow on New Year, I want to make sure the wine itself is a good bottle. It can be a bubbly pét-nat or crémant, but on New Year’s Eve I prefer the classic: Veuve Clicquot, or, if I have more money to spend, Perrier-Jouët or Dom Pérignon.
Fast food and champagne have the same atmosphere as leaving a busy party to have something to eat with your real friends. In this situation or a place that would make you wait, you would not resort to luxury dinner. Even though I personally have never sneaked wine into a fast food restaurant, Sideways style, the meal always evokes memories of the after-party moments from younger, wilder days. Now I skip the party altogether and stick to it.
This year, of course, the party is not even an option. But at home, with whoever we have in our household or on the podium, we can still enjoy the best part of the big New Year’s party – the part when it’s over. And is this not a fitting end to 2020 anyway?
PS If you do not powder the whole bottle in one night, there are some tools to keep that bottle sparkling for days on end.
