Enter The Dragon: The Auckland Restaurants Celebrating Lunar New Year In Delicious Style

Lincoln Tan rounds up some of the best Auckland restaurants to celebrate Lunar New Year (February 10-24), and what to eat, from hot pot, to Canton-style crayfish and a spot of high tea.

It’ll be just over a week before many thousands of people in New Zealand will join a quarter of the world’s population of eight billion in celebrating the Lunar New Year — or as my late mother would call it — the “real new year”.

Steeped in traditions and superstitions, the festival tied to the lunar-solar calendar was originally observed as a time to honour ancestors and the gods. Today, it is about celebrations of new beginnings, luck and prosperity.

For the Chinese, Lunar New Year festivities span 15 days starting on February 10 and ending on February 24 this year.

Definitely my favourite festival, as a child growing up in Singapore I looked forward to receiving hong baos, or red envelopes filled with money that married relatives handed out for good luck. Not so much now, when I’m the one having to give them out.

But one thing that hasn’t changed about why I love this festival so much is the food.

I love food, and central to Lunar New Year celebrations is feasting. It’s taboo to go hungry during the 15-day observance of the festival to ensure you will not encounter any hunger in the coming year — on the contrary, you are encouraged to overeat to get a year of abundance and surplus.

It is believed that eating the right food could be tied to luck and fortune for the coming year — things like whole steamed fish for abundance, dumplings for wealth, longevity noodles for long life, and prawns for happiness.

For many Chinese families, including thousands from the 283,000-strong population in New Zealand, they will begin their feasting on Lunar New Year’s Eve (Friday, February 9). It’s considered the most important meal, also often referred to as “reunion dinner”, where the whole family gathers to reaffirm the love and respect that binds them as a unit.

Koreans, Vietnamese and many from across the Chinese diaspora also partake in the festivities, which in Auckland starts with a Chinese New Year Festival and Market Day at the ASB Showgrounds on Saturday (February 3) and ends with the massive Auckland Lantern Festival that runs from February 22-25.

This year, I’ll be leading a series of six Lunar New Year walking food tours for Heart of the City and my reunion dinner with the family will be at Guangzhou Hot Pot in Mid City Mall after the New Year’s Eve tour.

It is believed the hot pot symbolises reunion because of its circular shape and the communal way it’s relished; it represents unity in the family. Typical hot-pot ingredients include thinly sliced lamb, pork, beef and seasonal vegetables, but on this festive evening almost certainly there’ll be “auspicious” additions such as abalone (pāua), fish and crayfish.

To immerse yourself in the true spirit of the festivities, make a reservation at one of the bigger Chinese restaurants, most of which will have set menus or special menus that include “lucky food” to ring in the new year.

Alternatively, you could join in the festive feasting at ticketed dinners like Rotary North Harbour’s Chinese New Year banquet at the Golden Phoenix Restaurant and Chow Luck Club’s Lunar New Year dinner at Treasure Kitchen.

Being the Year of the Dragon, demand for crayfish is expected to soar and many restaurants are stocking up their live seafood tanks with the premium crustacean.

“When the crayfish is cooked, it turns red and this is considered a lucky colour for Chinese New Year,” says chef Yuhua Xu, of Sum Made Restaurant.

Sum Made is a sizeable Cantonese restaurant located in Albany that’s built on two levels and has its own lift and six private dining suites, including one that has a round table that sits 24 and a private karaoke corner with sofa seats.

It also has an area with live seafood tanks that has everything from crayfish to king crabs, live fish, pāua, diamond clams to geoducks.

For the Lunar New Year, chef Xu, who hails from Foshan, Guangdong, has come up with three special lobster dishes in honour of the “dragon prawn”. They include a Canton-style crayfish in golden broth, stir-fried crayfish with special Mapo tofu and crayfish deep-fried with milk from Daliang.

Xu says that while lobster symbolises the dragon, a whole chicken represents the phoenix and both were necessary to have a balance of yin and yang.

“To pay homage to the phoenix in this dragon year, we will also have a classic Cantonese baak chit gai chicken salad served whole, including the head to represent completeness and togetherness,” he says.

Other favourite spots for Chinese New Year festive dinners include Grand Harbour Restaurant, Imperial Palace, Empress Garden, Grand Park Restaurant, Lobster Palace and Mr Lobster Private Kitchen.

Must-have dishes for the Lunar New Year vary depending on where you’re from. For those who come from Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia or Singapore, like myself, no new year dinner is complete without yusheng (or yee sang).

This raw fish salad is rich in symbolism and filled with ingredients that are considered auspicious. To eat this, people stand around the table with their chopsticks in hand and try to toss the salad as high as they can, and make as big a mess as they possibly can and shout auspicious phrases like “good health”, “good fortune” and “good luck”.

The higher you toss, the better your fortune and the bigger the mess, the bigger your “surplus” will be during the year.

Yusheng is on the menu at SkyCity’s Huami restaurant, and other popular eateries where you can partake in this prosperity salad toss include Treasure Kitchen Greenlane, Bunga Raya, Ipoh Malaysian Cuisine and Lima Bintang.

For something less traditional and a bit fancier , several Auckland hotels have got into the spirit of the lunar festival too.

Hilton Auckland’s Bellini has collaborated with Comvita honey to assemble a menu of beautiful creations and some sweet indulgences for a Chinese New Year afternoon tea.

The set includes fried bread buns with smoked custard, hoisin smoked chicken sandwiches, orange almond cupcakes, “breath of the dragon” meringues and smoking dragon fruit icecream bonbons.

“We wanted to have items that celebrated the dragon, and yet not be too traditionally Chinese,” Hilton’s executive chef Juan Patino says of the offering.

Over at Park Hyatt in Wynyard Quarter, Onemata has special multi-course set menus for a minimum of two diners offering a prosperity jade green superior broth, pan-fried fish fillet with black bean sauce, roasted drunken chicken and braised baby pāua.

The special runs from February 9 to 11 and can be elevated with an add-on of a buttery crayfish tail with pumpkin.

Eight Restaurant at the Cordis by chef Volker Marecek will also be adding a range of New Year offerings to its buffet including XO marinated chicken, crispy pork belly and steamed whole fish.

Now, not every Lunar New Year meal has to be about spending a fortune on a massive feast or lobster noodles — it could also be a cheap and cheerful bowl of “baby dragon” noodles at Biang Biang Noodles on Queen Street.

Chef Fengmin Yang, from Xian, uses a fascinating technique to make the traditional noodles by pulling, stretching and slapping them against the counter.

This dish originated in Xian’s Muslim Quarter and is called biang biang because of the slapping sound made when the noodles are hit on the kneading table.

“This year is extra special for me because I was born in the Year of the Dragon, so I had to create a dish that honours the dragon,” Yang says.

“We Chinese believe that eating noodles during the new year can bring you long life, so the noodles for the special bowls will also be extra long.”

The special noodles are topped with yabbies, called xiao long xia in Mandarin or baby dragon shrimps, and you get a choice of either spicy or with garlic sauce.

While the preferred term for the festival is now “Lunar New Year” rather than Chinese New Year, it is officially known as “Spring Festival” back in the People’s Republic of China.

In Beijing, the temperatures during the festival usually hover around the single digits.

But here in New Zealand, Spring Festival takes place right in the middle of summer, and a great way to celebrate is by having a good hearty Chinese barbecue.

Hustle BBQ Restaurant in Newmarket has private rooms, as well as indoor and outdoor seating options, and is offering special Chinese New Year meat platters and an auspicious seafood cold dish for balance.

“Just like Christmas in New Zealand is different from the Northern Hemisphere, having a barbecue is also becoming a unique Kiwi way of celebrating the Lunar New Year,” owner Boxuan Zhang says.

The seafood platter has all the lucky ingredients you need to ring in the Year of the Dragon, from prawns for happiness, abalone for abundance and crawfish to celebrate the dragon.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

More of where to eat around Auckland

From a seasonal restaurant in Piha to a bountiful Korean barbecue spot in Wairau Park.

From true Cantonese to fine dining: The changing face of Chinese cuisine in Auckland. Meet the restaurateurs bringing truly authentic flavours to New Zealand.

First look: A seasonal new restaurant serving the best of NZ is opening in the former Piha Cafe. Chef Lucas Parkinson will serve a sustainable menu of local produce in a stunning setting.

First look: Bianca is Ellerslie’s new pasta shop and soon-to-be wine bar. Chef Hayden Phiskie has big plans for his new neighbourhood pasta spot.

Jesse Mulligan: At this sizzling restaurant in Wairau Park, find a bounty of Korean barbecue. The staff radiate at least as much warmth as the restaurant’s bucket of glowing coals.

Jesse Mulligan: Gilt is a genre-defining, brilliant new addition to central-city dining. Josh and Helen Emett’s beautiful inner-city brasserie is somewhere to seek out.