• Honour, respect and table manners: a guide to Chinese banquet etiquette

Food and superstition are two of the strongest forces in Chinese culture and few meals are as deeply symbolic as the Chinese New Year banquet.

"For centuries, the Chinese have gone to great trouble to imbue their special foods with images of good fortune. Luckily for us they also happen to taste good too," says The Sydney Morning Herald's chief restaurant critic Terry Durack.

Traditional New Year banquet dishes are chosen for their symbolism and connotations of luck, Durack says.

The red colour of the crisp, crackly skin of a roasted suckling pig, for example, signifies good fortune for the year ahead.

"Noodles symbolise a long life, a whole fish means that those around the table will soon meet again, and small discs of roast pork represent golden coins that foretell great wealth, and so on," he says.

Plays on words are taken seriously in China, and many dishes are favoured because the name of the dish has a similar sound to a word or phrase with a positive meaning. Take, for example, one staple of the banquet - a dish of dried oyster and black sea moss.

"The Chinese name for sea moss (fat choy) means 'prosperity'. The traditional New Year's greeting kung hei fat choy means, in all its Oriental subtlety, 'May your wealth increase'," Durack says.

Other dishes which derive their meaning from the Chinese love of playing on words include abalone (bao yu) which sounds similar to a Cantonese phrase meaning "guaranteed abundance", bao meaning "guaranteed" and yu meaning "surplus" or "abundance". Prawns (ha in Cantonese) signify happiness and energy because the word sounds like laughter, while the word for oysters (ho see) sounds like the Cantonese phrase meaning "good things".

Some foods symbolise characters from Chinese mythology. Lobsters, sometimes called "the dragon of the sea", represent the dragon, which is a symbol of strength and good fortune. Paired with the phoenix, which is represented by a whole poached or steamed chicken served with the head and feet (the feet representing the phoenix's claws), the two symbolise a strong marriage and family.

Dishes are served whole to preserve the symbolism of the food and to represent unity. Steamed whole fish served with the head and tail is traditionally the final dish of the banquet, the presence of the head and tail symbolising a good ending to the year and a good beginning to the coming one. Fish is also served because the word for fish (yu) sounds similar to the word for surplus.

“It's in the spirit of auspiciousness and luck that normally during Chinese New Year you want everything perfect, everything complete. If you serve it without the head and the tail, it is incomplete,” says Tony Wong, manager at Iron Chef Chinese Seafood Restaurant in Cabramatta.

New Year banquet dishes are heavily steeped in Chinese philosophy and history, particularly the teachings of Confucius and Taoism.

"Typically, depending on whether you're in the north or south, there would be a balance of the yin and yang foods … which is linked to the idea that opposing forces create balance and harmony,” says Kylie Redfern, director of Chinese Business Courses at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Yin and yang in Chinese philosophy represent the two opposing but interrelated forces in nature. Yin foods, considered "cooling", are foods with a higher water content, which are usually steamed, boiled or poached, Redfern says. Yang foods are "hot" foods and tend to be deep-fried or roasted.

"In a banquet both yin and yang foods will be cooked and there will be a combination of sweet, spicy, salty and sour flavours to create harmony," she says.

And while New Year banquets are highly traditional and adhere to long-established customs, some of these customs do not apply at other times of the year.

"The whole idea is to do everything opposite to what you do in everyday life, which means excess and abundance and overdoing everything," Redfern says. "It's a celebration of the good life."

Which is why rice - a staple of the Chinese diet virtually every other day of the year - is only served towards the end of a banquet or sometimes not at all.

"Rice is a poor man's food; it fed the masses and is seen as something you fill up on when you don't have all the good stuff," Redfern says.

Chinese New Year banquets in Sydney

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide reviewer Les Luxford recommends the bigger, palatial Chinese restaurants for a New Year banquet with all the trimmings, including the traditional lion dance or dragon dance.

"The visit of the dragon is always accompanied by incredibly loud fire crackers," Luxford says. "The purpose of the dragon is to collect money, so put some money in your lucky envelopes and feed it to the dragon as it passes your table."

The Century

The Star, 80 Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont

Phone: 9566 2328

www.thecentury.com.au

Golden Century

393-399 Sussex St , Haymarket

Phone: 9212 3901

www.goldencentury.com.au

Choose from three Chinese New Year banquet menus (nine courses $880, $1280 or $1380 per table of 10)

Lion dance performances at Golden Century only, 7pm

The Eight Restaurant

Level 3, Market City, 9- 13 Hay Street, Sydney

Phone: 9282 9988

www.theeightrestaurant.com.au

Choose from eight Chinese New Year banquet menus ranging from nine courses for $42 per person up to 13 courses for $1388 per table of 12.

Lion Dance performance on February 9 at 7.30pm and February 10 at 7pm

Palace Chinese Restaurant

38/133-145 Castlereagh St, Sydney

Phone: 9283 6288

www.palacechinese.com.au

Choose from three 13-course Year of the Snake banquet menus (Diamond $1588 for table of 12, $988 for table of six; Gold $1288 for table of 12, $798 for table of six; Silver $1038 for table of 12, $688 for table of six) or an eight-course set menu for $90 per person

Lion dance performances on February 9 and 10 at 7.30pm

Sea Treasure

46 Willoughby Rd

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Phone: 9906 6388

14 courses for $1188 per table of 12

Lion dance performance on February 9 and 10 at 8pm

Neptune Palace

Gateway Building

Level 1, Corner of Pitt and Alfred Streets, Circular Quay

Phone: 9241 3338 or 9212 3901

www.neptunepalace.com.au

New Year's Eve banquet 11 courses for $90 per person

Mr Wong

3 Bridge Lane, Sydney

Phone: 9240 3000

merivale.com.au/mrwong

Seven courses for $88 per person

Blue Eye Dragon

37 Pyrmont Street

Pyrmont

Phone: 9518 9955

blueeyedragon.com.au

10 course Taiwanese banquet (choose six entrees and four mains from the a la carte menu). Includes one bottle of wine per four guests.

$50 or $60 per person, depending on number of seafood dishes ordered