Time for booking Chinese New Year dinners

With the Spring Festival still two months away, many city restaurants are saying they are already fully booked for nianyefan, the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner.

The family reunion dinner on Lunar New Year's Eve, is when people celebrate the year's achievements and make resolutions for the year ahead.

This meal, whether grand or small, is a traditional ritual for Chinese people.

Shanghai's oldest Cantonese-style eatery, Xing Hua Lou Restaurant, and the 98-year-old Sunya Cantonese Restaurant, said on Friday that all their tables were fully booked.

"About 70 percent of our private rooms for the dinner had already been booked the year before," said Wang Xiaping, catering manager of Xing Hua Lou. "Many regular customers have developed the habit of booking for the next year immediately after finishing their nianyefan, securing their favorite seats early."

Wang Bao He, another time-honored restaurant, said it was also fully booked.

For the winter season, restaurants in the city have launched new recipes to cater to the younger generation.

China's hotpot chain Haidilao launched six new hotpot soup dishes and desserts.

The new soup base uses a brand-new grinding process, said to make the taste more rich and mellow.

The restaurant selected five out of 12 mushrooms to become the final soup base formula, with Yunnan Chuxiong's wild black porcini mushrooms enhancing the aroma.

There's an old Chinese saying: "Eating mutton in winter is better than ginseng." When it comes to driving away the winter chill and nourishing the body, mutton is one of the top choices.

Haidilao is introducing mutton from Chifeng goats raised in Inner Mongolia for the first time.

The "Snowman Soy Milk Cake" is designed for dessert enthusiasts.

Sunya has launched a new lamb chop dish using the simplest cooking methods to restore the natural freshness of the ingredients.