A Chinese New Year feast

THE CHINESE New Year has been declared a public holiday in the Philippines due to the significant population of Chinese in our country. Our custom and tradition, after all, are greatly influenced by “Tsinoys” or Chinese who were born and raised in the Philippines.

Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino (WCCHC), through its immediate past General Manager Marco Protacio, started the festivity that celebrates Chinese New Year’s Eve with a spectacle a few years ago. This premier convention hotel, now

under the leadership of Austrian General Manager

Alfred Portenschlager, carries on the colorful celebration. The current renovation has not hampered the hotel from celebrating the Chinese New Year’s Eve—the entry of the Water Dragon. With all the big hotels celebrating this auspicious occasion,

only WCCHC has taken hold of the city and its skies on Chinese New Year’s Eve with its spectacular Fire in the Sky (a 10-minute fireworks display).

The Chinese New Year’s Eve festivity at the WCCHC lobby started at 6 p.m. with the age-old tradition of dotting the lion’s eye or Hoi Gong in the belief that this awakens the spirit with the drums, gongs and cymbals that filled the lobby with a deafening rhythmic sound–the louder, the better. General Manager Alfred Portenschlager and his special guests did the dotting ceremony. The lions, displaying their agility, then plucked the greens, usually Chinese cabbage hanged several feet above the ground and ate the greens before taking the red envelopes or ang pao. The lion and dragon dance followed, which is believed to bring good luck and fortune to the business.

In keeping with the tradition, we partook of a sumptuous feast at the hotel’s Uno where an

extensive buffet was laid out. WCCHC has one of the best Chinese restaurants in Cebu, Tin Gow, which serves exquisite Cantonese cuisine created by its Malaysian Chinese Chef Low Yuen Kong. And the Chinese station of Uno buffet features select dishes from Tin Gow. I went straight to the Chinese

station and started with Braised Bean Curd with Shrimp. Chef Low makes velvety, silken tofu that melts in the mouth. The mini Chinese Asado Buns and Sio Mai were exceptionally good. Popiah or

Fujian fresh spring roll is similar to our fresh lumpia with meat and vegetable filling. The Stir-fried Keow Teoh is a popular flat noodle dish in Malaysia,

Indonesia and Singapore. This is similar to Ho Fun or flat rice noodles. Our gracious host, Marketing Communications Manager Maebelle Varron,

assured us that the “Fire in the Sky” starts at 9 p.m. so we had time to enjoy our dinner. Meanwhile, I totally ignored the different stations and had my fill of more Chinese dishes like Deep Fried Dumpling, Fried Prawn Rolls, Spare Ribs in Salt and Pepper and the classic Fish Fillet in Sweet and Sour Sauce. On our way out to Treff Bar’s terrace/balcony where we had a good view of the spectacular fireworks, we were all given a red box with the

Chinese New Year Cake, Nian Gao, or the ubiquitous Tikoy eaten especially during this auspicious occasion. Eating this sticky, glutinous cake symbolizes raising one’s self higher in each coming year. Nian Gao means higher year.