Six affordable Sydney snacks to celebrate the Lunar New Year
From Laughing Cow cheese gelato to a char siu pie as big as your head, these limited edition treats will start your Lunar New Year on a tasty note.
Lunar New Year festivities are in full swing across different cultures in Sydney right now, from Vietnamese Tet to Korean Seollal. Whether you’re after something sweet or savoury, traditional or modern, here are six specials from Malaysia to the Philippines to help you slither into the year of the snake well-fed and with full pockets.
Siroo Rice Cake
Sydney’s first-ever rice cake cafe is selling a range of traditional Korean treats for the Lunar New Year including yakgwa (a deep-fried cookie flavoured with honey, sesame and ginger) and gangjeong (deep-fried rice puffs) in various colours and flavours including black sesame. While there, be sure to sit in to try their range of Korean rice cakes, mochi and bingsu loaded with seasonal fruit.
Various locations, sirooricecakecafe.com
Kariton
The Filipino ice-cream chain has two Lunar New Year flavours ($6.80 for one scoop) going until February 2. A gelato with a base flavour of the famous processed Laughing Cow cheese is mixed with jujube red velvet, candied goji berry and baijiu jelly. Their second flavour is a milk gelato, with pineapple jam and salted duck egg biscuits folded through. Spend more than $20 to receive a red envelope, some encasing prizes ranging from a free scoop to a free 5-litre tub of gelato.
Various locations, karitonsorbetes.com
Pantry Story
This popular bakery created quite the frenzy over its juicy char siu pie for $12.50. This is the second year in a row they have sold this sticky sweet-savoury delight for the Lunar New Year, with pork belly marinated overnight in char siu sauce, slow-baked and brushed with honey, then sandwiched between puff pastry and topped with a buttery pineapple bun crust. Get in before the special goes away at the end of February.
336 Parramatta Road, Stanmore, instagram.com/pantrystory_sydney
Fuji Seafood Restaurant
Specialising in food from the Chaoshan region in China’s Guangdong province, Fuji is offering two traditional desserts during Lunar New Year. Try their tong sui, a five-fruit sweet soup made with red dates, coix seeds, taro balls, lotus seeds and ginkgo nuts, plus white fungus ($6). They are also serving taro paste ($15) with ginkgo nuts, which is a traditional dessert for Chaoshan banquets. It’s made by stir-frying steamed taro paste in spring onion oil and sugar.
Marketcity shopping centre, 9, Level 3/13 Hay Street, Haymarket
Popo Gourmet
Owner Soon Tan has been carrying the legacy of her grandmother’s dessert stall in Malaysia since 1999. In that time, she has perfected her Malaysian dessert offerings, which feature a sweet selection of colourful kueh that changes each week. To celebrate the Lunar New Year, text to place your order for kueh baku, the Peranakan version of the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year dessert, nian gao, in original style or with peanuts ($19). Orders are open from now until February 12.
1/51 Berry Street, North Sydney, popogourmet.com.au
Palace Chinese
A pillar of Sydney’s Chinese restaurant scene, Palace Chinese’s Lunar New Year offering goes beyond their dine-in banquet menus. There’s still time to order their signature XO sauce-spiked radish cake that can be pan-fried at home or eaten as is. Also available are jujube cakes and coconut cakes. Until February 12, you can pick up a lo hei salmon sashimi salad toss, which is considered a symbol of abundance and prosperity.
Shop 38 Level 1 Piccadilly Tower, 133/145 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, palacechinese.com.au
Isabel Cant – Isabel is a social media editor for Good Food. Prior to joining Good Food, Isabel worked as a freelance journalist. She was also previously a social media producer for Endemol Shine Australia, working on MasterChef Australia and Dessert Masters.