The luck-bringing dish you must eat over Lunar New Year
The dish
Yusheng, Singapore
Plate up
Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year, probably means many things to many people; however, what it tends to signify for everyone involved is delicious food. The good people of the regions celebrating last weekend know how to eat, and across China, Malaysia, Taiwan and indeed the entire world you will find people feasting on traditional New Year dishes such as jiaozi dumplings, chang shou mian – otherwise known as “longevity noodles” – and ba bao fan, or “eight treasures rice”. In Singapore, meanwhile, they’ll be eating yusheng, a Cantonese-style dish of raw seafood served platter-style with vegetables, noodles, sauces and other condiments. Each ingredient has been chosen for its significance around the new year, representing everything from luck to wealth to sweetness in life. A good yusheng, however, is all about the toss: to begin the meal, diners all crowd around the platter, dig in with their chopsticks and toss the ingredients in the air to mix the salad. The higher the toss, the better the luck.
First serve
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Yusheng at its most basic was first developed in China more than 2000 years ago, where the people of Guangdong had a tradition of eating raw fish around Lunar New Year. The colourful salad now known as yusheng, however, was modernised either in Singapore or Malaysia – and honestly, that’s a debate we don’t want to weigh into. Whether it was developed by Singaporean restaurateurs in the 1970s, or was the invention of a Seremban-based chef around the same time, this dish is now a New Year tradition in both countries.
Order there
In Singapore, Man Fu Yuan, in the InterContinental Hotel, serves a whopping “Dragon’s Wealth” yusheng platter stocked with the likes of lobster, sea urchin, trout roe, Hokkaido scallops and salmon sashimi (singapore.intercontinental.com).
Order here
Sydneysiders looking to celebrate Lunar New Year in style can head to Malacca Straits on Broadway for a yusheng platter (malaccastraitsbroadway.com.au). In Melbourne, try Mid Valleys Restaurant in Cheltenham (midvalleysrestaurant.com.au).
One more thing
Even the name, yusheng, has significance around Lunar New Year. Though the literal translation is “raw fish”, in Cantonese those words are also a homophone for an “increase in abundance” – which has to be a good thing, right?
Ben Groundwater is a Sydney-based travel writer, columnist, broadcaster, author and occasional tour guide with more than 25 years’ experience in media, and a lifetime of experience traversing the globe. He specialises in food and wine – writing about it, as well as consuming it – and at any given moment in time Ben is probably thinking about either ramen in Tokyo, pintxos in San Sebastian, or carbonara in Rome. Follow him on Instagram @bengroundwaterConnect via email.