Welcome back to another edition of Stay-at-Home Holiday, this time featuring all kinds of festive feasts to ring in the Year of the Tiger at your dining/kitchen/coffee table. Here, Toronto restaurants offering all kinds of multi-course Lunar New Year meals for takeout or delivery.
Toronto’s oldest Hakka restaurant has collaborated with a few other Asian-owned businesses for this set menu that will feed up to five hungry people. Their four-course Lucky Lunar New Year dinner features a whole sweet-and-sour tilapia, their famous chili chicken, Hakka shrimp and pork wonton noodles, Chinese broccoli, plus six handmade lotus blossom cookies from Wai Tack Kee. There’s also a pair of Fortress Pilsner tallboys from Hong Shing and a trio of sauces (chili chicken, Manchurian and sweet-and-sour) from Yueh Tung’s sister company, Vooka, thrown in for good measure. Priced at a lucky $88. Pre-order for pickup from Jan 26 to 30.
Chef-owner Anna Chen is serving up a menu for two that includes her riffs on some classic dishes. It all starts with a choice of radish cake or duck and water chestnut spring rolls served with house-made plum sauce. The mains include sharing portions of whole steamed branzino prepared Cantonese-style with ginger, scallion and soy sauce; savoury wok-fried longevity noodles with shiitake mushrooms and vegetables; plus a side of steamed yu choy with sesame vinaigrette. For dessert: persimmon pudding with clementine curd. $120 for two. Pre-order for pickup or delivery Feb. 1 and 2.
Both of the special meals on offer here—the Chinese New Year Celebration Feast for two or four, and the Dim Sum Feast for one, two or four people—feature recipes inspired by co-owner and co-chef Mandy Sou’s grandmother. The former includes the colourful lo hei (prosperity salad), white cut chicken or Fukien tofu, lotus leaf steamed rice with shrimp, squash dumplings, “gold and silver” choy, wood ear salad and tang yuan (glutinous rice balls). The dim sum dinner is packed with an assortment of interesting dumplings (turkey and cumin, pozole, squash wood ear), Vietnamese spring rolls, radish cakes, sticky rice, congee, mango pudding and ginger custard. Add-ons include winter melon soup, a Chinese New Year radish cake gift box, Hong Kong milk tea or GIL, the brand’s smoky kombucha that’s similar to Chinese plum juice. $58 and up. Pre-order for pickup or delivery on Jan. 29 and 30 for the Celebration Feast, and Feb. 5 and 6 for the Dim Sum Feast.
For her Lunar New Year menu, executive chef Eva Chin has combined the flavours of her childhood with Avling’s beer. Packed with nine dishes and easy-to-follow reheating instructions, the feast kicks off with wild sidestripe shrimp and celeriac toast, turnip cake with rooftop carrot, lo hei roll made with winter root vegetables, and wontons in bone broth. Mains include belly warming eight-treasure congee with Avling XO sauce, steamed ling cod, a roast half-crown of duck, nian gao made with Canadian wild rice, and a sweet malted barley tonic closer. It all comes in one of Avling’s insulated tote bags along with three bottles of the brewery’s barrel-aged beer, a mood-setting playlist and party favours. Bonus: a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Asian Gold Ribbon Campaign. Pre-order for curbside pickup from Feb. 1 to 9, or for delivery (a $10 fee) from Feb. 2 to 9.
Toronto barber and chef Lina Khoun reaches into her Khmer roots for this four-course Lunar New Year menu. It features a choice of vegetable or pork dumplings, Chinese cabbage and wood ear salad, Buddha’s Delight noodle soup and steamed fish. The meal ends on a sweet note with orange and peanut butter cookies. $60 for one, $100 for two. Pre-order for delivery on Feb. 1.
This six-course family-style dinner feeds up to four people and is chock full of fancy food, including fried lobster seasoned with XO sauce. There’s also fried cod in a ginger-scallion seasoning, beef tenderloin with asparagus, a wild mushroom medley, plus fried rice peppered with goji berries, edamame, tobiko and gai lan. Add-ons include the Red Pocket cocktail ($20) made with goji berry-infused baijiu, Ribena, yuzu and gold flakes. $128. Pre-order for pickup from Jan. 29 to Feb. 6.
For those seeking traditional dishes, this set menu is brimming with auspicious ingredients: abalone, dried scallops, fish maw, dried oysters, pig trotters, shrimp, free-range chicken, barbecued duck and house-made fish balls layered with napa cabbage and lotus root for a flavour explosion. $188. Pre-order for pickup on Jan 26.
For Lunar New Year dinner solutions, there’s a range of poon choi (a vegetarian one, another packed with all kinds of luxe and meaty ingredients), deep-fried whole sweet-and-sour sea bass, deep-fried crab claws and deluxe Chinese barbecue party platters. Their Two-, Four- or Six-Blessings Lunar New Year family combos each offer a selection of speciality dishes from the T&T’s kitchen. $33 and up. Pre-order for pick-up from Jan. 14.
Holts’ limited-time Lunar New Year afternoon tea is built around Asian flavours. At the Bloor location, a selection of savouries (five-spice crab salad tartlet, a Peking duck and cucumber tea sandwich) and sweets (mango-pomelo pudding, egg tart and sesame balls) are paired with loose-leaf blends from Sloane Fine Teas. The Yorkdale store’s menu (also paired with Sloane’s teas) features crispy Taiwanese five-spice chicken, Pacific shrimp in a seaweed cone and five-spice scones with coconut jam are followed by bite-size desserts including almond milk cake, ginger truffle and a gold leaf macaron. $55 per person. Pre-order for pickup from Jan. 26 to Feb. 7.
NEVER MISS A TORONTO LIFE STORY
Sign up for Table Talk, our free newsletter with essential food and drink stories.