The Georgian calendar indicates that the first month of the year is well underway. The festivities celebrating the end of the previous year and the celebrations of the beginning of the new are now a distant memory. And just as the boredom of our New Year’s resolutions takes hold, the end of the lunar calendar draws near and another celebration awaits. Suddenly, January isn’t looking too shabby.
The lunar calendar heralds the dawn of the Year of the Horse. Signatures, the Chinese restaurant at Hotel Kempinski, is host to one of Jakarta’s most decadent Chinese New Year banquets. In a 10-course menu, each dish is studded with symbolism and meaning as it is with flavor and taste. Signatures’ chef Albert Liew has put together an offering that will have diners content that the start of the Lunar New Year is filled with the best trappings.
The meal begins with the traditional Yee Sang. In an invocation to the powers that be, with wishes and offerings of much success in the year ahead, strips of raw fish are tossed with shredded vegetables, laced with different sauces. Every member of the table is invited to participate in the process where enthusiastic tossing from the large platter is encouraged. Doing so ensures abundance, prosperity and, I’m told, vigor.
Sufficiently anointed with hope for a fresh start, the feast begins and Signatures does not disappoint. There are dishes involving beasts of various persuasion. Each dish represents meaning, prosperity, wealth and abundance, but the deep flavors and combinations do each dish justice, ensuring each person partaking of it a bright future.
Seafood soup with pumpkin sits brightly in a shallow bowl, to be enjoyed after a heady mix of chicken, jellyfish with plum sauce and fruit with prawn in a Szechuan paste. The delicate balance of flavors ignites the palette in preparation for the next course, deep-fried soon hok fish. Served whole to ensure prosperity, the dish, which arrives served with a special sauce, is wonderful. With a guarantee of a prosperous year ahead, one is invited to savor the duck, served with the hope of fidelity in the impending year. Prepared Peking style, this dish is succulent and tender. With its excellent combinations that highlight each ingredient, the meal — which also includes beef and prawn, rounding off with a dessert of sweet taro paste and coconut milk — is tastefully planned and meticulously served.
With its festive atmosphere, splashes of red prevalent throughout, and live harp music accompanying the meal, celebrating the Lunar New Year at Signatures is well worth it.
This year, the hotel has tied up with Yayasan Sekolah Kartini, an underprivileged school a Mangga Besar, and encourages visitors to contribute; guests may purchase a traditional red envelope and one winner is drawn at the end of the festivities. The grand prize features a one-night stay in the hotel’s Presidential suite.
Go ahead and indulge in the celebrations this New Year. And if feelings of guilt at having strayed from your meal plan arise, remember this meal, though heavy, is redolent with symbolism.
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