CNY Must Have 001 : Yu Sang

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. - Jan 29, 06 to be exact. The chinese will have a 15 days celebration from then on, till the last day, known as Yun Siew in Cantonese or Chap Goh Mei in Hokkien. Other CNY milestone includes the New Year Eve's dinner, New Year Eve's Money God Welcome, the 7th Day People's Day for the Cantonese, and the 9th Day Heaven's Emperor's Day for the Hokkien. That's all i remember as marked days for celebration growing up in Malaysia.

Last night, we went to the place Salsa for some Malaysian food and also 'Yu Sang'!!! I haven't had yu sang since 2002. It's a dish unique to the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore, and only served during new year. Yu sang is basically a cold salad dish, with pickled ginger, pickled papaya, sliced red chili, shredded asian pears, pamelo wedges, crunchy noodle, raw sliced fish with plum sauce and spice powder. For a recipe, click here. The dish is colorful and it brings good luck. 'Sang' rhymes with ‘grow’ in Cantonese. And the motion of stirring it up with chopsticks is ‘lou’. ‘Lou Sang’ in Cantonese means ‘prospering’. Look, we Chinese are all about the important values in life when it comes to celebrate holidays --- we pray for money, money and money.

Of course, it is a simpler version, not as elaborate as those in Malaysia, and no raw fish. But in Kansas and at $8.88, I won’t complain. It was Steve’s first yu sang experience. This is Steve’s commentary on the dish –

“yu sang - no fish, no singing, what's the deal?”

Anyway, we also found out that yu sang might just be served a little differently in Klang (or maybe it's just Tze). When the dish was served, this Klang guy started pouring the plum sauce on his own plate. The Olathe-guy followed suit and started taking crunchy noodles to his own plate too! Yeesin and I started yelling at them to stop. Needless to say, the two guys got a stern lesson from both of us on how to properly eat yu sang.

Can’t wait till Chinese New Year! Ok….. we really have no plan other than dinner with the usual gang on the 29th. What do you expect? We live in KANSAS!