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Two things are certain at Chinese restaurants in Australian country towns: you’ll find lemon chicken on the menu and the restaurant is open almost every day.
In the 1960s and 70s, Ruby Lee’s parents ran the Pagoda Cafe in Burleigh Heads, a surf town in Queensland. They worked 14-hour days and opened the restaurant year-round, even Christmas. When they did eventually close for one day a year, it was for lunar new year.
“It was the only day that I can recall ever eating out with the family while growing up,” says Lee. There weren’t any “good” Chinese restaurants in the area at the time, so the family celebrated at a local Pizza Hut.
When you’re one of the few Asian families in a small Australian town, cultural celebrations and festivities often only exist because of your resourcefulness.
Further up the Queensland coast, Gary and Aneliesa Bong ran Oriental Palace in Hervey Bay in the 2000s. They chose to work through 23 lunar new years and created a sense of festivity by offering a New Year banquet menu with specials such as pineapple fried rice topped with pork floss, served in a pineapple.
When Gary was growing up in Kuching, Malaysia, lunar new year meant firecrackers and lion dancers. In order for his young daughter and son, Jeleen and Jovi, to experience lion dancing, Gary once hired a troupe to drive 3.5 hours from Brisbane to perform at their restaurant. “No firecrackers, though,” he says.
Kam and Francis Chen, who ran Rathmines Chinese Restaurant in New South Wales’s Lake Macquarie area for 30 years, also worked through the holidays.
Kam would decorate the restaurant’s pot plants with red envelopes containing cash. One year, she sewed red fabric in a scallop design and hung it from the ceiling. At the end of the month when it was time to take it down, customers protested but Kam says, “it would have no meaning if I kept it up all year”. She made a yellow design the year.
For a long time, New Year with their two daughters simply meant enjoying a few extra dishes for their late-night dinner after work, such as white-cut chicken (a must-have New Year dish according to Kam’s mother) and braised pork belly with preserved vegetables.
In 2015 for the restaurant’s 10-year anniversary Kam decided to throw a lunar new year party at the local community hall, “just for fun, not to make money”. About 200 people showed up; the hall could barely fit all the tables.
Like Gary, Kam hired a lion dance troupe (with a much shorter commute of 45 minutes, from Newcastle), but she had to compromise on food.
“There were too many people, and I couldn’t cook for everyone, so we ordered roast beef and roast pork and four salads from the butcher next door.”
For many families, leaving the restaurant trade means celebrating in ways that weren’t possible before.
In recent years Ruby Lee’s family have swapped supreme pizzas for more traditional Chinese banquets. Last year, Kam and Francis, who retired in 2024, were able to spend lunar new year in Malaysia with extended family – their first time celebrating there in 30 years.
Since Kam’s mother passed away during Covid, it was up to Kam to cook most of the family reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve. To prepare for the all-important white-cut chicken, a family member went to the market at 4am to buy a freshly slaughtered chicken with head and feet intact, to represent wholeness.
By day, the family burned incense and paid respects to their ancestors and various deities. “So many deities!”, says Kam. At night, the family sat down to the chicken, roasted pork, lotus root soup, braised pork belly with taro, braised vegetables, and whole steamed fish – another New Year staple. The fish was particularly meaningful to Kam; they rarely had it at Rathmines where it’s hard to buy fresh whole fish.
Just as with Kam’s family, deities and ancestors ate first at Toy’s Garden Restaurant in the Victorian town of Horsham. For a long time, owners Leon and May Har Toy burned incense at an altar in their back yard. Since the family ate most of their meals, including New Year feasts, at the restaurant they eventually moved the altar there. “This way we don’t have to walk so far,” says May Har Toy. One year, the incense sticks were held in an Almond Roca tin filled with sand. The Toys retired in 2022, and the altar is once again in the back yard, in their new home in Torquay.
Moving from a small town to a city can also change how a family celebrates. Gary and Aneliesa sold their Hervey Bay restaurant in 2023 and relocated to Brisbane with their then-teenaged children. These days, Gary is an aged-care worker and Aneliesa is working her dream job as an accountant.
For their first lunar new year in Brisbane, the family went out for a Chinese banquet. “Jeleen and Jovi said, ‘Oh Dad, you can cook better than this’,” said Gary. So the family resolved never to eat out at a Chinese restaurant for lunar new year again.
Last year, the family celebrated at a steak and seafood restaurant in Brisbane’s West End. For the Year of the Horse, Jeleen and Jovi have suggested Bavarian sausages and pork knuckle. It’s the new year after all – change is in the air.
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Jennifer Wong is co-author of Chopsticks or Fork? Recipes and stories from Australia’s regional Chinese restaurants, available now through Hardie Grant ($AU42). Her upcoming show Feast with Jennifer Wong and Friends, is playing at Canberra Theatre Centre on Saturday 28 February.
