Here’s How To Enjoy Lunar New Year Feasts From Top Sydney Diners at Home (With Minimal Effort)

For the first time since 2019, Lunar New Year (LNY) celebrations in Sydney have gone ahead somewhat as normal. Nonetheless, scores of Sydneysiders are still going into isolation every day – and many more are avoiding crowds to steer clear of infection with Covid-19. If you’re not a dab hand at cooking (or simply can’t be bothered), a bunch of excellent eateries have put together at-home banquets that’ll be delivered directly to you via Providoor, and require a minimal amount of prep and reheating. Here’s what’s on offer.

Golden Century and XOPP
Late-night icon Golden Century may have closed last year, but its beloved Cantonese cuisine lives on in Providoor delivery form. For LNY it’s put together a luxe banquet for four. Get the party started with a dish of lobster with ginger-shallot sauce, then get into a plate of the diner’s famed XO pippies. Also on the menu? Black-pepper beef, steamed coral trout and fried rice.

Sister restaurant, XOPP in Darling Square is also doing a banquet. It includes steamed prawn dumplings, the XO pippies that give the diner its name, salt-and-pepper prawns and cumin-heavy lamb cutlets.

Ho Jiak and Amah
Ho Jiak (which you’ll find at Haymarket, Town Hall and Strathfield ) and spin-off restaurant Amah in Chatswood, are doing bang-up Malaysian feasts. Ho Jiak’s banquet includes chef Junda Khoo’s glorious har mee bomb: ingredients from Penang-style prawn noodle soup (prawn, pork fat and noodles) squeezed into a dumpling. That’s just the start of the meal, which also features Hainanese chicken, tau eu bak (braised pork belly), Angus-beef rendang and assam nyonya (a sour, spicy curry) made with barramundi.

Amah’s menu, meanwhile, includes fish-ball soup, a platter of barbequed meats, black-pepper curry prawns and tofu with spanner-crab sauce.

Lotus
Lotus has gone to a lot of effort with its LNY banquet. It comes with tinnies of its in-house lager, as well as salt-and-pepper peanuts and garlic cashews to throw back as you sip. Then, move onto its yee seng (prosperity toss salad); an array of dumplings; braised pork hock and tiger salad; tiger prawns with XO; and golden ingots with red-bean paste for prosperity. Lotus has also collaborated with Tokyo Lamington on a trio of lamingtons (lychee, fortune cookie and a yuzu-and-sesame-cream-striped number).

A little bit of everything
Dumpling-lovers can get their fix with a box packed with dumplings from a clutch of diners. This weekend’s box is sold out, making February 11 and 12 delivery your only option – it’s worth getting in early for this one. It includes Ho Jiak’s har mee bombs; pork-and-chive and prawn dumplings from Lotus; mini prawn mantou (steamed buns) and barbeque-pork buns from XOPP; and steamed prawn and golden coin (prawn and pork) dumplings from Golden Century.

providoor.com.au