Takeaway festive fare from Wan Li

The countdown to Chinese New Year is on again and I am looking forward to this season of feasting and family togetherness. But due to the global pandemic and resulting lockdown situation, celebrations will be different this year.

Takeaway Prosperity Yee Sang prepared
by Wan Li Chinese Restaurant, Renaissance JB

Even though there are limitations to our movement, I am glad that restaurants and cafés are still serving for takeaways and deliveries, so there is still an option to order in instead of spending long hours in the kitchen, preparing a menu of festive food.

We read online that most Chinese restaurants were already serving their seasonal specialties, so my family and I decided to have a takeaway experience for a pre-Chinese New Year banquet – and enjoy a lower Early Bird price.

Having agreed on the estimated time of arrival for the pick-up, I reached the porch of the Renaissance Johor Baru ahead of time to collect my order prepared by Wan Li Chinese Restaurant.

Here they are with my takeaway order from
Wan Li Chinese Restaurant

I told the security staff who approached me with a polite enquiry that I was there to collect my food order from Wan Li. A few moments later, I saw the staff coming out with bags containing my packed order.

I am familiar with the Cantonese cuisine prepared by Chef Linus Mak and his culinary team and was eagerly anticipating the taste of their popular Abundance Treasure Pot along with the eight-course Chinese New Year takeaway set which includes two desserts.

Our festive banquet at home will not be complete without a platter of Prosperity Yee Sang so I guessed that the round box within a Red carrier bag must be our order of this raw fish salad topped with Salmon fillets.

Ready to load up takeaway order into my car!

It is now a tradition to kick off a Chinese New Year banquet with a prosperity toss of Yee Sang, a phrase which literally means raw fish, so it will be fun to savour this festive favourite at home too.

There were three large paper bags neatly packed with takeaway containers with one carrying the claypot for the Abundance Treasure Pot or Poon Choy or Choi (Cantonese), a dish best described as a Banquet in a Basin.

Like the Yee Sang, the Poon Choi are available in two sizes, Small and Large. For our takeaway, I chose the Small size that serves a portion for five diners.

There was an air of excitement as I unloaded the carrier bags from my car and unpacked the food containers on our dining table, probably because this was our first time for a takeaway Chinese New Year banquet experience.

Adding salmon fillets to the
Prosperity Yee Sang platter

It does not matter that there was no fancy crockery in an elaborate table setting because what mattered most was the good food shared with loved ones in the comfort of our own home.

To share this experience with family members who cannot be home for our traditional reunion dinner this year, we made every effort to capture good shots of our meal to share this dining experience with them.

As was the tradition, we started our meal with the Prosperity Salmon Yee Sang prepared with Crispy Shredded Treasures and topped by salmon fillets which the chef had creatively folded into a shape that resembled rose blossoms.

I was privileged to do the honours of adding the side ingredients onto the salad with a praise-worthy attempt at pronouncing the appropriate auspicious wishes as each ingredient was added.

Tossing Yee Sang salad together!

When I poured in the tub of oil, I moved my hand in a circular motion to ensure that the liquid gold flowed in all directions to cover all areas with good fortune…

Above all, we are grateful for such bountiful provisions, for our protection and preservation, for the measure of good health we enjoy and the family, no matter how few of us, who can share this meal together during these unprecedented times.

Then it was time to raise our chopsticks to toss the salad together and give the ingredients a good mix.

It was good to taste the familiar flavour of a refreshing mix of piquant flavours from the colourful shredded ingredients that range from slivers of jackfruit, pomelo beads to pickled radish, tinged with the sweetness of plum sauce along with the crunch from slices of crispy beetroot.

Abundance Treasure Port that serves five diners

With our appetite suitably whet by the appetizing taste of the Yee Sang salad, we move on to admire the ingredients in the Abundance Treasure Pot with its top layer attractively arranged with heads of abalone, whole prawns from the sea and broccoli florets topped with black moss and a sprinkle of golden garlic.

As we eat through the layers below, we discovered slices of sea cucumber, Chinese mushrooms, fish maw, dried scallops, dried oysters, village chicken, roast duck, white radish, Chinese Tianjin cabbage, stewed in the rich flavours of golden garlic and abalone sauce.

In the tradition of treasure pots, the rich ingredients from this Banquet in a Basin were distinctly selected for their symbolism and prepared in portions sufficient to satisfy each diner.

Look at all these rich ingredients in the
Abundance Treasure Pot!

As we savoured the tasty ingredients, it was also an opportunity to introduce my niece to some of the ingredients that she was unfamiliar with.

For instance, faat choy, a black moss that resembles strings of black hair, its symbolism and why these ingredients are featured in Chinese New Year dishes.

By this time, the soup – still sitting in the takeaway containers – was cooling down so we emptied the portions of soup into a saucepan to warm it up before we savoured the comforting taste of the Double-Boiled Village Chicken Soup brewed with American Ginseng.

This festive menu included auspicious dishes of poultry, fish, vegetables, prawns and fried rice wrapped in a lotus leaf – and finally, two desserts.

Our takeaway pre-Chinese New Year banquet

Even though the dishes were laid out on the table, we chose to eat each dish one after another, taking our time to savour the flavours as if they were served course by course.

The portion of Wan Li Roast Chicken came with a box of crispy prawn crackers, packed air-tight for us to enjoy the crisp crackle of the crackers with the chicken.

For a change from the usual Steamed Sea Garoupa fish in Soya Sauce, this takeaway menu served a Deep-Fried Sea Garoupa and a side of Teriyaki Sauce with Garlic and Scallion.

Before starting on the fish, we drizzled the sauce over the deep-fried fish. In the privacy of our home, we had no qualms about rolling up our sleeves to dig in with our fingers and chewed every morsel of flesh from its bones.

My niece – a great fan of prawns – marveled at the size of the gigantic prawns and did her duty in de-shelling a prawn to serve her grandmother.

Meanwhile my eldest sister – not a fan of prawns – graciously offered her share to my niece who accepted it without hesitation and thoroughly enjoyed the wok-fried Sea Prawns soaked in the rich and fragrant garlic ginger sauce.

The vegetable dish was Broccoli with (big!) braised Mushrooms and Pacific Clams. These vegetables comfortably complimented the vegetables we enjoyed in the Yee Sang salad and happily finished it to the last bit.

The meal came to a fitting close with fragrant Fried Rice with cubes of Smoked Duck, Chinese Sausage and Yam, served wrapped in Lotus Leaf.

Then we cleared the table and took a break before serving the double desserts of Chilled Sea Coconut with Red Dates, Ginseng Herbs and Longan Soup, and crispy Nian Gao, a traditional rice cake made from glutinous rice.

It was like a taste of nostalgia when I sank my teeth into a slice of the rice cake, sandwiched between a slice of sweet potato and a slice of yam, then deep-fried coated in a crispy batter.

Chewing on it not only evoked thoughts of dad, who was such a fan of this rice cake (that he could enjoy eating it on-its-own!) but it also reminded me to (again!) share the belief about Nian Gao and the kitchen god...

Legend has it that the gooey consistency of this steamed sweet rice cake was to seal the lips of the kitchen god and stop him from giving a bad report about the family when he goes to meet the Jade Emperor a week before the dawn of the new year…

Double desserts of Sea Coconut with
Red Dates, Ginseng Herbal Longan soup
and crispy Nian Gao 

So each year as families gathered for reunion dinners and festive feasting, this and other folklore will be shared among the family from generation to generation, in a tradition that builds strong bonds and family togetherness.

As we put down our chopsticks, we agreed that while a takeaway Chinese New Year banquet was a different experience, it was pure pleasure to savour festive favourites with dear ones in the comfort of home.

To place takeaway orders, Tel: +607 – 381 3388 or +6017 – 771 3327. Email: henry.lee@renaissancehotels.com

Wan Li Chinese Restaurant is on the lobby level of Renaissance Johor Baru, at No. 2 Jalan Permas 11, Bandar Baru Permas Jaya, 81750 Johor Baru, Johor.