2013 Happy New year

Happy Chinese New Year! Two days ago, February 10, was the first day of the Chinese lunar calendar and this day is considered the most important of traditional Chinese holidays. The Han people (Chinese), minority groups (55) in China, Koreans, Vietnamese and countries with sizeable ethnic Chinese population, all join the celebration which can last for a week.

Filipinos, particularly Cebuanos, join the festivities because many prominent families here have some Chinese roots including the late Philippine president Don Sergio Osmeña Sr., the Grand Old Man of Cebu. Your favorite food columnist can trace his Chinese lineage to his maternal grandmother (Tan family, Southern Leyte) and in many ways I do accept my heritage including eating and cooking Chinese dishes.

This is the most auspicious time of the year to have a family reunion, eat good food, drink good wine and wish that all the members of the family will have the best of health, wealth and happiness. And for the media practitioners, invitations do come from the better hotels and restaurants. I make it a policy to accept the first invitation to that particular hour/day. Cebu is such a small place and it is very difficult to antagonize business partners in the service industry.

Prelude to the Spring Festival celebrations, I was invited by my good friend, Rica Reyes Rellon of Radisson Blu Hotel Cebu for a peek into their latest marketing blitzkrieg, “Wok on Saturdays,” at the Feria Restaurant which began on  February 9, the eve of the Chinese New Year.

They envision offering authentic Chinese dinner buffet with appetizers, dim sum specialities, luxurious soups and roast, including Peking duck. Then every Saturday onwards, Feria restaurant will offer Chinese lunch and dinner, all at 50% off the regular buffet rate (Php 595 net per person). Indeed, the mother of all the lunch and dinner buffet wars, excuse me, has just begun!

Any good restaurant begins with its kitchen and Feria has a formidable team of Chinese chefs, Chef “Peter” Yeung Siu Man, dim sum Chef Zeng “Eric” Zi Liang, and Chef Li Baojiang who handles with mastery the art of hand-pulled noodles (la mien)

We had lunch that began with a Dim Sum Medley by Chef Eric; Crabmeat Sio Long Pao, Abalone Dumpling and Crispy Flower Style Roll. The latter looked very attractive with a delicious filling and definitely has become my new favourite among the deep fried items.

Roast Duck Breast with Chinese Pancake was then served with Hoisin sauce but personally, I do prefer to roll my own pancake because I want control on the amount of fatty tissue. The soup was very good: Double-boiled Chicken with Dried Scallop. So much effort went into the preparation of the stock to have this kind of soup!

A fish, steamed Lapu-lapu cooked traditional style, was prepared to conform to the practice of serving food that are  symbols of prosperity or it has a homonym in the Chinese language with a phrase about success, power and wealth. The word “fish” sounds like the word “abundance” and serving whole fish means “consecutive bonus”. We then had the Wok-fried Stuffed Scallop in XO Sauce and Asparagus, Stir-fry Hand Made Noodles and finally a wonderful Dessert Degustation by Chef Sonny.

For the title of this article, copy and paste with permission from Joanna V. Arong,   www.oldfoolfilms.  com  and hope the best of wealth, health, longetivity and happiness for all my beloved readers this year of the water snake. [email protected]