Lunar New Year: Singapore restaurants see strong festive demand even as Covid-19 curbs persist

Name: Thai shop turns Lunar New Year feast dishes into coconut milk jelly desserts
Uploaded: 2022-02-01T01:52:47.000Z
Duration: 2 min 27 s
Description: Thai shop turns Lunar New Year feast dishes into coconut milk jelly desserts

Eateries offering traditional specialities including the festive fish salad yu sheng are anticipating a significant jump in Lunar New Year sales

High-end hotels are also seeing greater demand for in-person reunion dinner bookings than at any time since the start of the pandemic

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Lunar New Year lantern decorations at Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. Photo: Xinhua

Bloomberg

Published: 9:52am, 1 Feb 2022Updated: 9:55am, 1 Feb 2022

As the world marks the start of the Year of the Tiger on February 1, the question for Asia’s food and beverage industry: Will Lunar New Year be as good for business as it was before the Covid-19 pandemic?

Last year, consumers in China spent around US$127 billion on Lunar New Year-related dining and shopping, according to China’s Commerce Ministry. That figure was 29 per cent higher than in 2020, but marked a decrease from 2019’s US$158 billion.

This year, even as pandemic restrictions on travel and dining out continue in such destinations as Hong Kong and Singapore, there are signs of a continued recovery for many restaurants and businesses.

Take Fei Ye Ye Food Tradition in Singapore’s Chinatown Food Complex. Among its specialities are yu sheng, a traditional festive fish salad (the dish’s name sounds like the Chinese word for “abundance”; hence its popularity around this time of year).

Soo Mei Leong, who runs the stall with her husband, anticipates a 30 per cent increase in Lunar New Year sales from 2021. More significant, she also projects those sales could be 10 per cent higher than before the pandemic.

“The smaller versions that serve four to five people are selling very fast,” Leong said in a video interview. Sales of party-sized platters of yu sheng for groups of 20 or 30 people aren’t as good, she says, amid Singapore’s limits on household gatherings to a maximum of five visitors per day.

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Thai shop turns Lunar New Year feast dishes into coconut milk jelly desserts

Kenry Peh, a fourth-generation tea man at Pek Sin Choon Pte in Singapore’s Chinatown, says what used to be a 20 per cent sales jump at Lunar New Year has turned into 25 per cent, as online orders become more popular and as concerns about the pandemic decrease.