Food fest(2)

"Yangzhou's traditional festival food is brown-braised round pork foot," he says. "I'll also sautee some watercress, bean sprouts, small shrimps, and boil some pork ribs with winter turnips, in addition to making a soup with an old hen."

The owner of Purple Bodhi - known as Mrs Yang in entertainment circles - says the restaurant offers Taiwan, Cantonese, Huaiyang and Singaporean foods. Like all Chinese people, Yang says cooks give auspicious names to festival dishes.

"Spring roll is called 'big gold bar', egg skin jiaozi is called yuanbao, silver ingot, and fried bean sprouts are called ruyicai, 'grant one's wish' dish," she says.

For the festival, Yang recommends raw salmon with Chinese salad, a traditional specialty from Guangdong The Chinese name is feng sheng shui qi, which literally means "rising water and wind".

"As customers eat the salmon salad, we pray for good fate and fortune for the country, for businesses, and for ourselves."