CNY vs. Date Night

Wednesday is our date night. Tonight is Wednesday. Tonight is also Chinese New Year’s Eve.

Plan A: To go eat Tepanyaki at Jurong Point Mall and go to Fair Price for some groceries.

Plan B: Eat wherever we could find open and go to Fair Price for some groceries.

Plan C: Eat Chinese instead of Japanese, take some photos eat some RED (had to be red) sorbet and drive to our local Cold Storage. Assuming that in expatville, it would be open.

Plan D: Eat Chinese instead of Japanese, take some photos, eat some RED sorbet, drive to our local Cold Storage, find out that Cold Storage is also closed and get the necessary groceries next door at StarMart petrol station (aka gas station/convenient store).

CNY vs. Date Night? I’m calling it a tie. We still had a good time and enjoyed the adventure. It sure was strange to be out on the town on CNY eve. Last year we went to China Town. BIG difference!!

We were the ONLY Caucasians in the entire mall.  At least we didn’t see any others at all. This restaurant was one of four that we saw open. Indian, Indonesia, Swensen’s and Chinese. We chose Chinese, of course. It’s CNY and we had to eat Chinese since it was an option. I’m really sad, though, that we didn’t get to see anyone throw salad (see explanation below). They asked us if we had reservations and we said no and looked really pouty. They felt sorry for us foreigners who, as far as they knew, were new to Singapore and had no idea what they were doing. It worked for us. We got a table and we got to eat.

I got some RED sorbet. Had to be red.

We found several people standing outside of the closed gate to Fair Price. Check out the guy on the phone. “Eh wah, NTUC closed ready. Need bread. Bread Talk finish too, lah. What do now?” And then look over to the right at the lady peering inside as if they just might open the gate for her.

We left the mall to find that Cold Storage was closed too so we got a few groceries at the gas station. It was actually pretty amazing what items on our list that we managed to get there. Nice to know they will be open all night long and throughout the holiday weekend. It’s not Bucee’s but we got our bread. 

These are some other shots that I took while we were at the mall. If you needed shoes, Anna Nucci had your back. And Starbucks was hoppin’!

We say goodbye to the year of the tiger and hello to the year of the rabbit.

新年快樂 Xin Nian Kuai Le!!  Happy New Year!!

and

恭喜發財 Gong Xi Fa Cai!!!  Congratulations and prosperity!!!

Salad throwing explanation: Yusheng is often served as part of a multi-dish dinner, usually as the appetizer due to its symbolism of “good luck” for the new year. Some would consume it on Renri, the seventh day of the Chinese New Year, although in practice it may be eaten on any convenient day.

The base ingredients are first served. The leader amongst the diners or the restaurant server proceeds to add ingredients such as the fish, the crackers and the sauces while saying “auspicious wishes” (吉祥话 or Jíxiáng Huà) as each ingredient is added, typically related to the specific ingredient being added. For example, phrases such as Nian Nian You Yu (年年有余) are uttered as the fish is added, as the word Yu (余), which means “surplus” or “abundance”, sounds the same as the Chinese word for fish (yu, 鱼).

All diners at the table then stand up and on cue, proceed to toss the shredded ingredients into the air with chopsticks while saying various “auspicious wishes” out loud. It is believed that the height of the toss reflects the height of the diner’s growth in fortunes, thus diners are expected to toss enthusiastically.

P.S. Here’s a cool link for some interesting CNY tidbits. If you break something during CNY, what you need to say to ward off bad luck is here. Just in case.