Sydney Eat Street: Lunar New Year 2021 food celebrations
Lunar New Year celebrations may not be able to draw in massive crowds this year but Sydney restaurants are still offering great food to mark the Year of the Ox and the all-important ‘reunion dinner’.
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2021 is the Year of the Ox — the second of the 12 Chinese horoscope zodiac signs.
The Ox is hardworking and methodical, so in the spirit of the Lunar New Year celebration (February 12-21), Sydney Eat Street was the same in gathering the best places to celebrate a fresh start, kicking off with the all-important Reunion Dinner — the most significant family gathering of the year.
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BODHI RESTAURANT BAR
“X” definitely marks the spot for a most excellent meal at one Bodhi Restaurant Bar, a long-standing plant-based Pan Asian destination this Lunar New Year.
The Eight Treasures Salad Bowl ($26) has the lucky number of eight plant-based ingredients: shredded beetroot, enoki, spiced peanut, cucumber, radish, shredded carrot, lettuce and crispy wonton topped with chef Brooke Ng’s signature peanut and ginger sauce.
It’s a shared dish, placed in the middle of the table for everyone to dig in with their chopsticks, tossing it up while announcing New Year’s wishes of good fortune, health and happiness.
The higher it goes, the better luck you’ll have.
Restaurant owner Heaven Leigh says: “Chinese New Year is a symbolic celebration of good food, family and friendships. Food has always been a great connector of people; a universal language.
“With the last 12 months leaving so many of us disconnected, it’s even more important this year that we find ways to reconnect with one another over the simple act of sharing a meal and each other’s company.”
Bodhi is just off College St in the city, beneath St Mary’s forecourt, under a canopy of Moreton Bay fig trees.
Heaven adds: “Every Chinese New Year we gather together family and friends to celebrate over a shared meal. Each dish is symbolic of something that brings good luck and fortune.
“There is nothing better than having a reason like Chinese New Year to eat lucky food, connect with the people you love and clean out your house of any broken things.
Bodhi Restaurant is a great place to celebrate and enjoy a delicious feast with plenty of space and fresh air in our outdoor dining area, sat underneath ancient Moreton Bay fig trees overlooking the park.”
Don’t miss the special Lunar New Year cocktail called the Niú ($18), meaning Ox in Chinese.
— 2/4 College St, Sydney; bodhirestaurant.com.au
NEW SHANGHAI
Family is the focus of the Lunar New Year onset and there’s no better way to gather than over a scrumptious meal, made just that much more enjoyable when the cooking is left in the hands of the masters at New Shanghai.
Strategy manager Anthony Tam says: “The reunion dinner, also known as ‘Tuan Nian’, marks a family gathering on the Lunar New Year’s Eve and the Chinese consider it to be the most important part of the celebration.
“Children are supposed to return to their families to enjoy a banquet feast. In old tradition, if a family member couldn’t participate in the grand feasting, his or her presence is usually symbolised by placing an empty seat at the banquet. Reunion dinner served on Lunar New Year’s Eve is undeniably a highlight of the entire holiday season.
“A banquet full of auspicious symbolism and delicious flavours for the family. It also brings a joyful family together around a full table and symbolises the hopes for prosperity in the year ahead.”
The Lunar New Year Banquet of eight dishes ($48pp, minimum four people), each has its own significance.
They include: lettuce cups of prosperity (chicken san choy bao); make me rich dumplings (four-colour lunar new year dumplings); boundless energy (prawns); house full of gold (eggplant); rich and opulent (kim chi and pork stir-fry); fish of fortune (crispy Barramundi); longevity noodles (Shanghai stir-fried noodles); and abundance of sweetness (New Year mango pudding).
HO JIAK
With overseas travel still locked down, Ho Jiak’s Junda Khoon is determined to make the most of this year’s Lunar New Year at this popular Malaysian eatery in Haymarket/Chinatown.
Junda says: “With international borders closed, many of us won’t be able to celebrate Chinese New Year with our families. It’s been a tough year, but it’ll get better, and we just need to stay strong and positive.
“I’m doing a six-dish special at Ho Jiak, mostly dishes that we have during our own reunion dinner. It’s not fancy, but it reminds me of my family that I can’t see or celebrate Chinese New Year with.”
Junda says the menu is inspired by growing up in Penang, particularly his close ties with his grandmother, Amah.
His dishes are ones that either ones his grandmother taught him or inspired him to make.
On the menu this year are dishes including Yee sang (prosperity salad), steamed whole Barramundi and Amah’s Chap Choy, wok-tossed vegetables.
— Strathfield, Haymarket, Town Hall; hojiak.com.au
DARLING SQUARE
Lunar New Year will be hitting a high note at Darling Square with great food, lantern installations and entertainment, including lion dancers, DJs and opera.
A relatively new dining, residential and commercial precinct, last year, Darling Square had to pass on its planned inaugural Lunar New Year celebrations, but like the hardworking Ox, it’s ploughing through and getting things back on track.
Chinta Ria owner Simon Goh says: “Lunar New Year reunion dinner will always be a time for us to remember the unity of a family. We rekindle the together moment.”
There will be plenty of prosperity noodles with Chinta favourites including, Lobbie (lobster tails in ginger shallot gravy on crisp chow mein), and Royal Prawns.
Also, in the spirit of coming together, modern Vietnamese restaurant Hello Auntie has paired up with Tokyo Lamington, the creators of the Asian-inspired variants of the classic Aussie lamington and developed two sweet and one savoury creation (as a nod to the Year of the Ox, it’s a MB2 beef red curry katsu between two savoury lamington sponge pieces with cocoa butter and coated with fried shallots and roasted coconut flakes) which will be sold at a pop-up shop, while the ever-inventive Dopa by Devon will have a black sesame mochi cake with creamy salted egg yolk custard.
SUGAR POP BAKERY
Whether it’s a sweet treat on arrival or something special for dessert, these adorable cake pop and shortbread cookie creations are bound to start the Lunar New Year off with a much-needed smile.
There are three Year of the Ox packs (pack of six, $39.98). They are Wealth (one lucky Ox cake pop, one money bag cake pop, one gold ingot shortbread cookie, one mandarin shortbread cookie, two fortune cookies in gift wrapped box), Fortune (one lucky Ox cake pop, one cherry blossom, one lucky red packet, one mandarin shortbread cookie, two fortune cookies in gift wrapped box) and Health (one Chinese boy cake pop, one Chinese girl cake pop, one mandarin shortbread cookie, one cherry blossom shortbread cookie and two fortune cookies in gift wrapped box). 12 pieces cost $76.88 and 18 $108.88.
Hurry as they go quickly.
REUNION DINNER
There’s no place like home for the holidays, particularly that first meal when the whole family returns from travels and work to reunite over a fabulous feast filled with traditions and symbolic dishes.
Book in for banquets at some of these Sydney favourites.
— Zilver Haymarket; 1/477 Pitt St, Haymarket; Zilver Bondi Junction; Shop 6010/500 Oxford St, Bondi Junction, zilver.com.au; The Eight; 9-13 Hay St, Haymarket, theeightrestaurant.com.au; Golden Century; 393-399 Sussex St, Haymarket, goldencentury.com.au
ARIA
A champion of Australian produce, executive chef Joel Bickford combines these premium ingredients with the flavours of Asia to create a six-course tasting menu ($220pp) and eight-course degustation ($290pp) with such dishes as fatty pork jowl paired with Chinese broccoli, classic XO sauce and fermented black garlic; raw pearl meat from pristine coastal waters with white kimchi, soy and burnt citrus dashi; grilled WA black marron with sea urchin, kombu and caviar. (February 17-24)
— 1 Macquarie St, Sydney; ariasydney.com.au
SPICE TEMPLE
Colours abound from February 10 to 20 at Spice Temple, where chef Andy Evans has curated a menu to welcome the New Year with nine symbolic dishes including red roma cherry tomatoes and beetroot — red being the colour of prosperity and happiness, and the predominantly green Yu Sheng (Prosperity salad) is the colour of the Ox.
“We have drawn on our most special dishes that we save for celebratory occasions and designed menus that promote prosperity, happiness, peace, love and other aspects of good fortune,” he says.
Dinner is $129pp with matching wines for an additional $85pp.
— 10 Bligh St, Sydney; spicetemple.com.au
PROSPERITY SALAD
It starts off civil enough with a plate of neatly divided portions of shredded vegetables, raw fish and sauce — each one having its own auspicious meaning such as green radish representing eternal youth. The fun starts as everyone digs in, sings out well wishes, and tosses the ingredients into the air, technically mixings the salad but also creating quite a fun mess. And tasty too.
— Umi Sushi & Udon, 1-25 Harbour Dr, Darling Quarter, umisushi.com.au; CHUUKA – Suite 62-64, Jones Bay Wharf, 26-32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont; chuuka.com.au
WHOLE FISH
Leftovers, specifically fish are a requisite of the Reunion Dinner. Since the word for fish sounds like “surplus”, leaving enough for the next day’s meal foretells of an abundance of health wealth and happiness in the year to come.
— Boon Cafe, 425 Pitt St, Haymarket; facebook.com/booncafethai; Lilong by Taste of Shanghai; tasteofshanghai.com.au; NokNok Thai Eating House; Shop 9/1-25 Harbour St, Sydney, noknok.com.au
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