How to enjoy Chinese New Year with your family

Chinese New Year, also referred to as Lunar New Year, is the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar. The holiday is a two-week festival filled with reunions among family and friends, an abundance of delicious food and wishes for a new year filled with prosperity, joy and good fortune.

Reuniting with everyone you love

Hands down, the most traditional and cherished aspect of the New Year is reuniting with family. Gathering all of the generations together to celebrate the holiday is so important that many Chinese people return to their native villages for the celebration, even if it means flying in from across the world.
Those who cannot make the trip often get together with neighbors and attend local festivities in their area.

Paying respects to elders and ancestors

At its heart, Lunar New Year is a family reunion. Paying respects to elders can take many forms, from bowing to parents and grandparents to making sure they get the first piece of roast duck at dinner.
For many people, it might be the one time of year where they visit a temple to pay respects to ancestors by lighting incense sticks and making offerings, and praying to deities. It is all part of ensuring a good start to the year for everyone, and putting the old year aside for a new beginning.

Having some childish fun

Before they can sit down to eat, families gather together and spend the evening making Chinese dumplings. One of the common Chinese New Year traditions involves concealing a coin in one of the dumplings and distributing them among family members. Whoever discovers the coin in his or her dumpling will supposedly have good luck for the New Year.

In addition, older family members present children with red money packets (red represents luck in the Chinese culture), decorated with gold designs and filled with "lucky money."

Eating and being merry

What holiday is complete without a proper feast (or feasts)? The Chinese New Year is full of delicious meals, none more significant than the highly anticipated New Year's Eve dinner, which honors family ancestors.

Uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, grandchildren, great grandchildren and more attend these savory events, where delicious dishes of nian gao cake, steamed rice pudding, long noodles, and dumplings are commonly served. It is a little-known fact that when fish is included, the Chinese make a particular point not to finish it for superstitious reasons.

Read more: Foods to celebrate Lunar New Year in China

Source YourTango

Shanghai Street Foods: the unique cuisine you must eat

Shanghai is the epicentre of China’s street food culture. In the heart of the Yangtze River Delta, it is where merchants and migrants have travelled to for centuries, bringing different regional dishes from all across the country. From steaming baskets of dumplings to pungent stinky tofu, our Shanghai street food guide takes you around the city’s backstreets to unearth the tastiest delights.

Shāokǎo

Follow your nose or the long plumes of smoke rising from vendor stands to find these meat skewers being hawked on street corners across Shanghai. Marinated in herbs and spices, meats like spare ribs, chicken legs or fish and vegetables are lovingly barbecued over hot coals and known as shāokǎo.

Shansi Leng Mian (Eel Noodles)

Shanghai is famous for its eel dishes, and you can't get more Shanghainese than shansi leng mian, or 'eel thread cold noodles,' the street food hybrid of a restaurant classic. The dish arrives as two separate components that you can choose to mix together or savor separately. First, fine wheat noodles, a little flat rather than round, served cold so they have a firmness to the bite, with a splash of light brown vinegar on the bottom and a slick of sesame sauce on the top. Second is the eels, by way of contrast served hot, swimming in the most marvelous sweet, oily, gingery, soy braising liquid.

The flavor is complex, slivers of sweet ginger, pieces of rich, oily eel, shreds of salted bamboo shoot and little wilted, caramelized pieces of scallion. But the real draw is that contrast of textures and temperatures, going from the firm, cold noodles and the viscous, warm eel sauce.

Tofu Flower Soup 

Made by curdling soy milk, this smooth tofu soup contains the subtle flavor of soybeans beneath a colorful mixed dressing of dried shrimps, pickled radish, seaweed, scallion, soy sauce and chili oil.

Cifantuan (Sticky Rice Dumplings)

Dubbed to be the champion of breakfast food, sticky rice dumplings are much in demand as an early morning meal in Shanghai. In a piece of fried dough (called as ‘youtiao’ in Mandarin), wrapped tightly with glutinous rice, and cooked in a steamer, you can add ingredients like preserved Sichuan pickles, black bean sauce and dried pork floss. The cifantuan combines plenty of flavours, including sweetness from the glutinous rice and saltiness from the pickles. Children are fond of pinching it while taking a bite to taste its softness, chewiness, and crispness.

Scallion Pancake

Scallion Pancake is a staple food for the Shanghainese. Pan-fried with lard oil then baked in a stove that is made from a tar bucket, the scallion pancakes of the old Shanghai style are stuffed with fresh chives. The pancakes are flattened and browned to perfection on the grill. A perfectly grilled or baked scallion pancake is a study in contrasts, the outside is crispy and crunchy while the inside is fluffy and tender. Finding a food stall serving handmade scallion pancake is as easy as pie.

See more: Explore the best of Shanghai

Dou Hua

Dou hua (literally 'bean bloom') is made by pouring hot fresh soy milk into a dish containing a coagulant (usually gypsum, or calcium sulfate) and dissolved cornstarch. The starch gives duo hua its silken, just-set texture. After a few minutes, the tofu 'blooms,' setting in the center of the bowl in a quivering flower surrounded by yellow whey.

Dou hua is very delicate, scooped gently into a bowl with a spoon. The flavor is subtle and mild, but this is a dish you enjoy for its soft, silky texture. Choose toppings like finely trimmed scallions, la jiao chilli paste, or tiny dried white shrimp for a texture contrast.

Source Internet

Best restaurants to have Chinese foods in Saigon

Ho Chi Minh City has an abundant and growing number of Chinese restaurants. These restaurants mentioned below are your best bets for eating Chinese in Saigon.

Lee's Noodle Kitchen

One of the newer faces in town, Lee’s serves up a variety of tasty noodle dishes in one of Saigon’s most western neighborhoods. The prawn and pork dumplings are delicious and the roast duck mouth watering, yet at Lee’s it’s really the noodles that steal the show. Each dish can be ordered dry and then tossed in a sesame oil or as a soup with steaming pork broth.

Tan Nguyen Thai

Tan Nguyen Thai is known locally by Western expats, Chinese, and Vietnamese alike to have some of the best dumplings in town. A towering menu sitting on top of red and yellow signage will let you know you’ve made it to this always-packed hole in the wall in Saigon’s historic Cholon neighborhood. This should be a stop on any food lover’s visit to Vietnam. The menu is as extensive as it is delicious, featuring nearly a dozen pages of steamed or pan fried dumplings. Come with friends so you can try as much as possible.

Ocean Palace

Located just outside the madness of central Saigon, Ocean Palace is one of the best higher-end Chinese options in town. The menu is geared more toward seafood with options like prawn dumplings and shrimp pancakes. However, their meat and vegetarian options are great as well. The roast duck is crispy and expertly marinated.

Tien Phat Dim Sum

In operation for over 20 years now, Tien Phat is a Hong Kong joint dropped into the midst of Vietnam’s oldest Chinatown. The menu is similarly extensive to that of Tan Nguyen Thai, and the ambiance is cozy, casual and authentic. The steamed pork and crab dumplings are some of our favorite in the whole city.

Li Bai Chinese Restaurant

Located on the second floor of the Saigon Sheraton, Li Bai boasts some of the best and most expensive Chinese food in the region. The Beijing Duck is widely regarded as one of the, if not the, tastiest in the city, and the Dim sum list is never ending. With such a high-end location, it’s no surprise that the service is great and ambiance pleasant.

See more: Typical breakfast dishes in China

Source: Internet