Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner

Today is the eve of Chinese New Year. This is the day where all the families members will gather around for a reunion dinner and celebrate the start of the a brand new year in the Chinese calendar. However, this year I'm away from my family and unable to join them for the "lou sang" reunion dinner that we had been practising for sometime and all the Chinese New Year preparation.

Last year, the same day, I remembered I am just helping my parents a little here and there. Morning session, my mum will be busy preparing food for the prayers session to the ancestor. Some of usual food that she prepared are pig stomach's pepper soup, stewed pork, fried chicken, vegetables. (While blogging on this, it reminds me of the hot steaming pig stomach's pepper soup that I always enjoyed a lot.) In addition to that, since it's a Chinese New Year, there will be definitely some "huat kuih" and "nian gao" being served during the praying session. Then in the evening time, usually after my afternoon nap, will help my dad with the midnight praying session preparations. I always will do the gluing of the red colours paper to all the fruits that are to be used for the midnight praying session to welcome the deities of the heaven and earth. As for the dinner, we will be out for "lou sang" dinner where it usually takes about 2 - 3 hours to finish. After dinner, last minute cleaning will take place before the praying session kick off.

Today, I am not taking part in any of the above preparations and dinner as I am away from home. However, I am experiencing a different cuisine of reunion dinner with my partner's family. This year, for a change, they had made the reunion dinner earlier as the kids need to attend to school and the adults will need to go for work the next day. And also for a change, they had opt to have Brazilian BBQ.

We went to Wildfire Churrascaria on last Sunday for the reunion dinner. Wildfire is a Brazilian BBQ restaurant in viaduct Auckland that provides you with the "All you can eat" concept. We had chosen the Gaucho dinner where it provides a selections of appetiser, and a variety of meats, poultry, homemade sausages and seafood with a selection of seasonal sides, sauces and salsas. As this restaurant provides the concept of "All you can eat", there's a little note for the ease of ourselves and the waiters, which is the traffic light thingy. We were advised that whenever we feels like taking a break or stopping the meal, we shall turn the traffic light to red, and there wouldn't be anyone serving any food to our tables. Once we would like to continue on after the break, we shall turn the traffic light to green.

Our dinner started off with some breads then followed by of the 5 selections of appetiser as per the photo above. Once we were done with our appetiser, we were served with a two tier seasonal sides which consists of green salads and roast vegetables. Then we were asked to turn the traffic light to green for us to be served with selections of meats, poultry, homemade sausages and seafood.

As we were too busy with eating and chatting on that day, there isn't much photos taken. I enjoyed most of the food that were being served, and those that I can recalled that was delicious were:-

• Fried calamari
• Fried zucchini
• Homemade sausages
• BBQ chicken
• Roast pork

It was a totally different reunion dinner experience to me that I enjoyed a lot.

Happy Chinese New Year to all of you!!!

Wildfire Churrascaria

Quay Street, Auckland,

New Zealand

Phone: 09 353 7590