The New Year celebrations can last for about 15 days and most Chinese Australian families like many others around the world, would spend Chinese New Year by gathering together for a festive meal. It is still common practise for children to receive red envelopes (Hong Bao, Ang Pao, or Lai See) with money in it.
It was dinner with some close friends on Chinese New Year night at the popular Tao's Restaurant, with a East meet West fusion menu. For its Urbanspoon rating click here.
Being a new year, one of the other attactions of the restaurant for the night is the Chinese Lion Dance, a form of traditional dance in which performers mimic a lion's movements in a lion costume, always accompanied by loud drums, cymbals, and gongs. It is a loud noisy performance with a rhythm to it.
We were all looking forward to this, reason being, the lion dance is believed to bring good luck and fortune. Hence you see the restaurant and dinners "rewarding" the lion with an Ang Pao. The more difficult the challenge the lion has to face to retrieve the Ang Pao, the greater the reward should be.
As interesting and exciting as the lion dance may be, the night would only be deem a good night for me is the food that's served. In this, I was not disappointed. The following photos are some of the Chinese New Year set dinner dishes that was served.
Beautiful flavours complementing each other and excellent presentation. It is true that food is first tasted with the eyes, at least it is for me in this occasion.
The restaurant itself is quiet (that is, after the lion dance performers has left) with subdued background music and the staff friendly and attentive.
It is not my first time to the restaurant and it will not be my last.
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