Fish dessert & lion dance for month-long CNY at Bodhi
Cute koi-shaped yum cha desserts, complimentary hung bao packets and a colourful traditional Lion Dance will form part of the Chinese New Year celebrations bringing good luck and fortune to diners at Australia’s longest running vegan restaurant, Bodhi Restaurant Bar this February.
Extending on its usual year-round offering of plant-based yum cha and Pan Asian dishes, Sydney’s Bodhi will introduce a special auspicious menu for The Year Of The Ox, inspired by the traditional flavours and sights of Lunar New Year, available daily throughout February*.
Featured on the menu will be a trio of bite-sized Coconut Koi desserts ($10), made from coconut milk and modelled on the lucky koi fish - a word which in Chinese rhymes with “leftovers”, implying a surplus year ahead. Available for lunch, the fish-shaped sweets make for the perfect end to a vegan yum cha feast under Bodhi’s ancient Morten Bay fig trees.
For dinner, tuck into the special Eight Treasures Salad Bowl ($26), combining the lucky number of eight plant-based ingredients: shredded beetroot, enoki, spiced peanut, cucumber, radish, shredded carrot, lettuce and crispy wonton – all topped with Bodhi’s signature peanut and ginger sauce. The dish is designed to share and toss with chopsticks to “Lo Hei”, meaning “toss up good fortune” in Cantonese.
A great complement to either dish is the lucky red-hued Chinese New Year cocktail special, the Niú ($18), meaning Ox in Chinese. It’s a fragrant mix of sesame-infused vodka, rhubarb gin, apricot jam, kaffir lime, raspberry syrup, lychee, star anise and aquafaba.
The highlight of the month will be on Chinese New Year itself, 16 February, when Bodhi will stage its annual traditional lion dance performance from 6pm, and gift each dinner booking with a lucky hung bao red envelope symbolising good luck, as a gesture of kindness for visiting. Bookings are essential.
Event: Chinese New Year special menu and celebrations
Dates: 1-12 and 15-28 February 2021, with the Lion Dance on 16 February (from 6pm)
Times: Lunch (yum cha) Monday-Saturday 11am-3pm, Sunday 11am-4pm. Dinner (a la carte) Tuesday-Sunday 5pm-10pm
Address: 2/4 College St, Sydney NSW 2000
Reservations: (02) 9360 2523, www.bodhirestaurant.com.au
*Menu won’t be available 13 and 14 February, when Bodhi will instead offer a special Valentine’s Day menu.
About Bodhi Restaurant Bar
Australia’s longest-running and largest vegan restaurant, Bodhi Restaurant Bar has been feeding people delicious plant-based yum cha and Asian cuisine since 1988. Located in Sydney's Cook + Phillip Park, with an outdoor area set under ancient Moreton Bay fig trees, the restaurant is an oasis of calm on the city fringe. It’s philosophy of “do no harm” and inclusiveness fuels its food and beverage choices with an all-vegan menu of yum cha for lunch and a la carte for dinner using ingredients sourced from local growers of sustainable produce.
Address: 2-4 College Street, Sydney 2000
Opening hours: Lunch (yum cha) Monday-Saturday 11am-3pm, Sunday 11am-4pm. Dinner (a la carte) Tuesday-Sunday 5pm-10pm
Website: www.bodhirestaurant.com.au
Instagram: www.instagram.com/bodhirestaurantbar
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bodhirestaurantbar
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKabAdrVOPqj_lxL-CKxqGQ