Reunion Dinner
According to the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia…. At Chinese New Year a reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve where members of the family, near and far, get together for celebration. The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and traditionally includes chicken. Fish (魚, yú) is included, but not eaten up completely (and the remaining stored overnight), as the Chinese phrase 年年有魚/餘; (nián nián yǒu yú, or "every year there is fish/leftover") is a homophone for phrases which could mean "be blessed every year" or "have profit every year", since "yú" is also the pronunciation for "profit". A type of black hair-like algae, pronounced "fat choy" in Cantonese, is also featured in many dishes since its name sounds similar to "prosperity". Hakka will serve "kiu nyuk" 扣肉 and "ngiong tiu fu" 釀豆腐. Because the things sound alike, the belief is that having one will lead to the other, like the old child's aphorism "step on a crack, break your mother's back".
Today we had an early reunion dinner at the Pariss International Buffet Restaurant @ Tampines mall with my family. This is the first time we had one outside. At least my mom won’t have to work so hard to prepare the dinner for us. I think they enjoyed the dinner but I still prefer the home make steamboat which has the CNY and get-together atmosphere. I hope we can do the steamboat thingy next year.
