Got a thing for Chinese food? Niiice… me too! It’s one thing to just eat some fried rice and another thing to make a whole fun evening out of it! Yep, the votes are in – making a whole evening of it is much more fun, engaging and memorable! This date is totally great for just you and the hubs OR as a group date.
Create an invitation for your spouse, letting him know about your Chinese themed evening ahead. Or feel free to download my simple invitation! I attached it to some chopsticks and left it on his chair to find at breakfast so he could think about me… er, I mean, the date all day long.
Name your “restaurant”! Use an online language converter to translate it into Chinese (or just find some random Chinese characters and then get a good laugh when you look it up and realize it meant “monkey ice cream” or something!) Print it out and hang it up near your dinner table. I named my restaurant “Love” (I know… I’m sooo original!) Feelin’ the LOVE? Sweet, you can use my sign.
Create the atmosphere! Nobody wants to spend money on needless things, but don’t underestimate the dollar store when it comes to things like this! I found 2 battery operated Chinese lanterns there.
With some chopsticks that you can get from any Chinese take out joint, some folded napkins and any other cheap Chinese items (partyland or any other party store sells these several for a dollar) it can really make a difference to your table.
Signs say “Get trapped together” and “To keep love burning, fan the flames” These sayings are compliments of my friend, Melanie, who is the ultimate party planner!
Oh, one more thing! To use as place mats and to look up your Chinese sign (by your birth year) you can easily print or refer to this handy Chinese horoscope page I found here.
Whether you choose some Chinese food from the frozen section at the grocery store (EASY) or just grabbing Chinese takeout (even EASIER) try to serve dinner in at least a couple different courses so it feels more fancy. How can you go wrong with edema me, pot stickers, egg rolls, fried rice, and your favorite choice of meat? I chose to use our kids’ square plates just to be a little different.
It’s so obvious, I really shouldn’t say it, but… you CAN’T forget fortune cookies!
During dinner or afterward if you prefer, ya gotta play this little game of Wok Tok – it’s HILARIOUS! If you’re familiar with the game Mad Gab, then you already know how to play. Read the phrase on the paper and have your spouse tell you what he hears. Most of these phrases have something to do with love. In this game, it really is what you hear NOT what you see! Download your Wok Tok game instantly below. Cut the phrases into strips of paper and place them in a bowl or even better – in a little Chinese takeout box.
Need some convincing? Read this aloud:
Wheel Yum Air Ream He
What did you hear? Read it out loud again…. or have someone else read it out loud while you DON’T look at the words… and you’ll surely hear the answer:
“Will You Marry Me?”
The funniest part is listening so intently to your spouse talk like the village idiot (just kidding! Ooh, I did NOT just say that… I meant ME!) Really it’s more like a VERY FUNNY accent! (I love you, honey!)
??
(FUNNY!)
If you don’t end up playing that the whole night (it’s quite a list!) then make something in origami for each other. (Not a shabby way to make a surprise love note for him another time!) There are tons of step by step tutorials online. Here is an easy to follow instructional video for an origami yin yang because “you’re my other half”. And here’s a video tutorial for a beating heart origami. (Btw, you might be surprised at just how handy knowing at least one thing in origami can be with kids.)
Remember those Chinese lanterns from dinner? Turns out they work just poifectly for soft bedroom light at the end of the night, but you don’t have to take my word for it… you’ll see!
We love your comments
I simply love these ideas! Will be planning an Asian inspired picnic for my husband and I!
Thanks! I am cutting out the Wok Tok game for tonight! We are going out to our favorite chinese restaurant!
Thanks so much for all these awesome ideas. This date was perfect for us. My hubby works and goes to school. He usually has a lot of homework. Tonight he didn’t and thankfully my mom was able to watch our son spur of the moment. I already had Chinese food in the freezer so I chose this date out of our bucket and put it together in an hour and a half. I’ll post pics on my blog the Sunday after next. I didn’t have time to go by the dollar store so I made one Chinese lantern with a battery operated candle in it and put it on our “table” (plastic cloth on the bed with all the food laid out). We didn’t have the money for fortune cookies so I made a few paper fortune cookies and put the papers from Wok Tok in them. I found a recipe for Chinese egg custard tarts and used that as the dessert. Origami and eating with chopsticks was challenging lol. Thankfully my hubby knew a little about both and helped me out. The Chinese lantern craft is here: https://www.creatingreallyawesomefreethings.com/c-r-a-f-t-10-chinese-new-year/
I found traditional Chinese tunes on Pandora and wore a silk robe with my hair in Chinese looking buns on each side. Our date nights are so much better since I found your site! Thanks a bunch :)!
I was dying to do a family chinese date night as my boys LOVE chinese. however the link given above does not work (https://divinityonassis.com/?p=178) or the webpage doesn’t exsist. Pls help really would love to do this as a date night
Set the mood with free traditional Chinese music from http://www.pandora.com.
This worked great for us! We only had about an hour to spend quality time together this evening but it was sure nice to have a little extra fun while eating dinner. Thanks for continuing to post great ideas to help us keep our marriage fun:D
LOVE this and am planning this for next weekend. It’ll be a stay at home date and I want to incorporate our little girls into the fun. While Mommy and Daddy eat their Chinese takeout I’m going o make the girls Peanut butter and jelly sushi rolls lol:
https://allrecipes.com/recipe/peanut-butter-and-jelly-sushi-rolls/
Thanks so much for the ideas!
We just used this idea (almost exactly as you wrote it- cause that’s how creative I am!) for our 6th anniversary. We never celebrate really big and we have 2 little kids at home, so this was the perfect date to help us sneak in a little extra alone time after the kids went to bed, connect and laugh together over a silly game and enjoy some yummy food we wouldn’t normally eat! The theme and decor were just enough to make it special without breaking out of our comfort zone (or budget!) and into over-the-top or cheesy. Keep these great ideas coming, couples like us really need your creativity to make celebrations special!
SO love this idea Kiirst! Me and my hubby LoVe our Chinese food. Delish. And cute pics on here to boot. I’m definitely incorporating this date the next time we have craving for Chinese food. Thanks for the cutest idea!
I love this idea!! I adapted it to a family night and posted it on my website! https://divinityonassis.com/ Thank you for all the wonderful ideas! You guys are so fun!!
Stephanie
Super cute, Stephanie! Here is a direct link to her cute post in case the rest of you want to adapt this idea for a family night as well: https://divinityonassis.com/?p=178
I love this date idea! My fiance proposed to me after we ate Chinese food, yes, the ring was in the cookie. And I knew it was coming, and was paranoid, so I made him open his first and he wouldn’t, so I opened it for him. My cookie had a paper that said, “Just say yes!” And his had the ring, so I kind of ruined that one…ooops. I think we’ll have this date sometime in June, after we are married because I love it and we love Chinese!!!
What great ideas! I’m gonna start planning my date night for this week right now. 😀 As I was reading, I thought about these templates that my kids and I used to make Valentines this year: https://store.scrapgirls.com/product/11606/ScrapSimple-Craft-Templates%3A-Fortune-Cookie. The boxes took some effort (just a lot of cutting), but the paper fortune cookies were really easy and it was fun that you could write or print what ever you wanted on the strips. They could make a fun date invitation or something.