Chinese New Year dinner

Do you like pig?

We love pigs, especially ones that come with crackling. Thin bubbling shards of crisp crunchy shattering crackling that cannot be eaten quietly. That's the kind of pig I love.

One of three queues at Emperor's Garden on Chinese New Years Eve

It was Chinese New Years Eve on Sunday, and you could feel the excitement in the air in Chinatown, particularly at Emperor's Garden BBQ House where everyone was getting their last-minute purchases of celebratory roast pork. I'd been dispatched to help bring home a special guest to Veruca Salt's annual Chinese New Year dinner. He didn't say much but boy oh boy did we gush over him!

The most important passenger in the car

Whilst we saw many families picking up suckling pigs for their Chinese New Year feast, I think we had one of the few orders for a whole roast pig. Veruca Salt was going all out for this one, citing "better crackling" as her justification.

Porky travelled in style in the boot. And you haven't suffered gastronomic torture until you've travelled twenty minutes in a car with the smell of a freshly roast pig. The air was thick with the tantalising aroma of crackling. I almost wept with pain.

21.5kg of happiness

There was plenty of excitement when the guest of honour met everyone. I believe there was even a mini photoshoot with individuals, beaming with happiness.

Veruca Salt cooked up a storm as always. There were two kinds of spring rolls, stuffed chicken wings, yee sang salad, a cooked rooster (see below!), xoi sticky rice, steamed perch (from the tank that morning), jellyfish and roast pork. Lots of roast pork.

Adding sesame seeds to the yee sang (yushang) salad for good luck

Tossing the yee sang salad

The rooster on a bed of xoi sticky rice

Steamed perch

Jellyfish and roast pork

The crackling was sensational and the pork was, to quote Veruca Salt, "flubberlicious".

Gong hei fat choi!

Hope the Year of the Ox is healthy, prosperous and full of good eating!

Don't forget the Chinese New Year Twilight Parade is on this Sunday from 7.30pm.

4 Comments:

At 1/29/2009 9:16 am, K said…

Oh yum! I still remember the whole pig we had for my sister's birthday one year. It was very satisfying indeed having a whole pig. We even torched it a little more just before serving to get more crunch out of it. :P
Gong hei fat choi!
At 1/29/2009 11:10 pm, Anonymous said…

That is soo coooll! I must get a whole roast pig sometime hee hee.

Hee hee did the car smell like roast pork for days after?

Happy New Year!
At 1/30/2009 2:13 pm, Anonymous said…

Helen, I wish you had a smell-o-vision.

I'll have to show Master 4 this post. He wanted to know the day after we had roast pork for dinner "did you and Daddy eat the rest of the crackling?"
At 1/30/2009 2:37 pm, Helen (Grab Your Fork) said…

Hi K - Wow you torched the pig! That sounds strangely fun! Happy New Year to you too!

Hi FFichiban - It's not a cheap purchase but one mouthful of that crackling and it all seems worth it - although I do have to thank Veruca Salt for being so generous, as always. I don't thnink we stunk out the car, but hey, I can think of worse smells to linger!

Hi Divemummy - Oh yes, I think that crackling is his new favourite food group. He has impeccable taste!