My family doesn’t normally like to eat vegetables. At every gathering, we prefer to feast on scrumptious dishes of meat: pork, beef, lamb, chicken, fish… you name it, we eat it. But every Chinese New Year Eve, you’ll see my uncles rushing to toss carrot and cucumber strips while beseeching good luck and more money in the coming year. It can be an other-worldy experience…. but Welcome to a typical Chinese New Years celebration in Singapore!
The Yusheng dish was started in the Southern Song dynasty but has been given a modern twist by a Singaporean chef called Than Mui Kai (who is also one of the 4 heavenly great chefs in Singapore during the 1960s!) I wish I had been alive then if only to try their cooking because my older family members often lament about the food of the good old days.
Lets go back to Yusheng.
For many families in Singapore, the first item on the menu would be Yusheng. Literally translated, Yusheng means “raw fish”. It stands that it is a raw fish salad which is tossed for good luck and fortune. It consists of about 17 ingredients (a lot considering it’s just a salad), with each ingredient symbolizing some kind of good fortune for those who consume it.
For example: eating carrots and daikon brings good luck and prosperity, sweet fruits such as pomelo and candied melon symbolize good fortune, and crispy crackers represent nuggets, as in golden nuggets for more money!!
Having Yusheng on the table is a ritual. This ritual is also referred as “lo hei” or toss up. The higher you toss, the more fortune you will get. First, the waitress will balance a large plate on one hand and serve it down swiftly in front of you. She smiles and wishes you Happy New Year before getting ready to prepare the salad. First she will start by dressing the salmon (or any other fish) with lime slices while reciting the phrase “nian nian you yu” (年年有余) or “every year has fish”, a Chinese proverb meaning “abundance throughout the year”. She then adds pomelo over the dish and says the phrase “da li da ji” 大力打击 meaning “luck and auspicious value”. This goes on until all the ingredients are added, one by one.
Next you will be served long chopsticks which are approximately the length of your arm. This is to enable you to toss your salad the highest you can. Generally everyone stands up to perform this because of everyone wants to toss it higher and higher up. Its also less messy this way. After tossing the salad, you are allowed to put a serving onto your plate.
What does Yusheng taste like? It’s sweet and crunchy, and tastes of sweet plum sauce and crunchy peanut. It has come to my attention that those in the younger generation love Yusheng whereas the older generation generally don’t favour the taste. Personally, I’m crazy over it.
Yusheng has become quite the icon in Singapore and it’s safe to say almost no one celebrates Chinese New Year without it. However, the original version has since been modified in order to cater to different tastes and budgets.
The most basic and cost-friendly form of yusheng is ordering the dish without fish slices. However, many splurge and order with fish slices and from there, they can choose from salmon, tuna, or mackerel. Some places I recommend for this are Soup Restaurant (B1-07 ,290 Orchard Paragon) or Grand Shanghai (Level ground of Grand Corpthrone Hotel, 392 Havelock Road). Both restaurants are great for Yusheng but both offer very different ambiances. Soup Kitchen is tailored after the Chinese women construction workers that came in the early 1900s offering homey cuisine. Grand Shanghai focuses on the sassy songstress era of the 1940s in China’s busiest city. The prices are more steep at Grand Shanghai with its minimum price of $48 for Yusheng versus $38 for Soup Kitchen.
For those looking for something more upscale, say Yusheng with added gold dust and champagne jelly, I suggest trying out Jade restaurant (Fullerton Hotel, 1 Fullerton Square ). The price is $48 as well but for a much smaller portion compared to Grand Shanghai. Still, it’s worth it for those wanting to ring in the New Year right!!
YuSheng can go up to $188 which is quite a big sum for raw carrots. But hey, us chinese are known for being calculative with money so why not let loose once a year?
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wow this blog is amazing! great post!