2012 Vietnamese Tet Festival @Sandown, Melbourne

As we all recover from the New Year celebrations... Festivities start to pick up again as we celebrate Tet (Vietnamese New Year) & Chinese New Year. 2012 welcomes the year of the Dragon.

The largest Tet Festival in Melbourne will be held on the 4th & 5th of February at Sandown Race Course.



What you can expect at the Sandown Tet Festival:
- Delicious food such as bot chien, pho, barbeque food, sugar cane drink
- Live entertainment. Usually there is an international singer that fronts the performance show. It hasn't been announced who this is yet - I will keep you posted. Previous performers have included Don Ho, Diem Lien, Tommy Ngo.
- Fun carnival rides such as the boat, the spinning planes
- You can try you luck with the cool games! See if you can take home a huge soft toy.

Past Tet festivals have attracted over 35,000 people. It is expected a bigger crowd will attend this year's Sandown Tet festival.

What does the year of the Dragon mean?
It is considered the year of good luck. In Chinese mythology, the dragon represents good fortune in health, wealth and longevity. The dragon is also a protector and is well respected and beloved by the Chinese people.

My Favourite Restaurants in Melbourne

For the best sushi in town, I recommend this sushi restaurant in South Yarra:

Uta Sushi Bar
31 Chambers Street, South Yarra VIC 3141



Everytime I think of this place, my mouth waters. They make the best california rolls on earth! It contains salmon, crap, cucumber, carrot, avocado, jap mayo... it's tastes devine! The fish is delivered fresh each morning, so you can expect the sashimi to melt in to your mouth.

I highly recommend the california rolls, sashimi, tamago. They are my personal favourites. All the sushi they make is delicious.

I have recommended this place to a lot of my friends, and they all agree that this is the best sushi in Melbourne.

They added 2 hot dishes to the menu: unagi (eel) on rice, seafood udon noodles. I was curious about these new additions to the menu, so I tried the udon noodles. It was quite underwhelming. I have a feeling that it was instant udon noodles. This place specialises in cold food, there isn't a hot stove on all day. I guess you can't expect a fantastic hot meal if the chef isn't working next to the stove.

But do try the sushi! It's brilliant.


The Best Korean BBQ Restuarant:

Sut Korean BBQ
Address: 970-972 Whitehorse Road, Box Hill VIC
Phone: (03) 9899 5900

Why is this place my fave? They cook the meat on coal. mmmm.... delicious. You know, when I went to Korea last year, I ate Kbbq almost everyday. You can imagine that when I returned home to Melbourne, I was sickkkk of it. I couldn't eat kbbq for five months. This was where I went to eat after my korea trip. It's really delicious. Because it was cooked on coal, it took a bit longer. There was six of us so we were waiting a while for the meat to get cooked. lol. If you love kbbq, you must check out this place too.

Sandown Tet Festival Weekend (Saturday - 5th Feb 2011)

Happy Tet Everyone!! Hope you are enjoying all the New Year celebrations with your family and friends!

The largest TET festival in Melbourne held @Sandown Racecourse is on this weekend!! I went yesterday with my gal pal Skye and we had a blast!!

What I love about Tet Festivals is the lively and fun atmosphere! There were carnival games, rides, delicious Vietnamese food, exhibitions and Live entertainment!



Singer Y Phuong, entertaining the audience

One of the main attractions @ the festival is the live entertainment show! I thought it was cancelled this year because we couldn't find the stage. However, through the night we found it hidden on the other side of the grounds. Due to the heavy storms on Friday (which caused flooding in many areas in Melbourne), the organisers decided to move the show undercover! Usually the stage is in the main part of the grounds and the audience can sit in the stadium. When we got to the entertainment area we found out the main act was the beautiful Vietnamese singer Y Phuong. She is from Asia Productions. She wore this sparkly gold dress that really lit up the stage. The crowd absolutely love her!! They sung along with her and cheered loudly after every song.



Skye and I went on the carnival ride Skydiver, it looked pretty fun! Small children seemed to love the ride. So we went on, and it was frightening! It spun really fast and started to elevate really high! I was like practically crying! I was so scared and screaming like a maniac! haha. I was pretty disoriented after but it was pretty fun!

Here are pictures of other rides at the Tet festival



I love Tet festival food! This type of food you do not get in Vietnamese restaurants. So at festivals I eat a lot of food!! I was too busy eating and forgot to take photos of the food available! Well the food I ate included bot chien, banh khoc, nuoc mia hahaha mmmm...

Here are some of the cool displays at the TET festival! Quite amazing stuff









The Festival is also held on Sunday 6th February! It's worth checking out!! Have fun and Happy Tet!!

Sandown Racecourse Tet Festival on Feb 5th, 6th

One of my favourite calender events of the year is the Sandown Racecourse Tet Festival - The biggest Vietnamese New Year Celebration in Melbourne. This year the event is held on February 5th and 6th, so note that down in your diaries.

I love this festival so much because it's so much fun! There are carnival rides, games where you can with the giant toys, live concerts, awesome vietnamese festival food and spectacular fireworks. It's a great event to go with your family and friends.

A lot of famous vietnamese singers were flown in to attend this major Tet festival! I was lucky to meet some of the artists which include Don Ho, Tran Thai Hoa, Thanh Bui.

This is a picture of Don Ho and I @Sandown Tet festival in 2009. The crowd just loved him!! He is the best live entertainer!


Sandown Tet Festival is awesome fun! Hope you guys go and try some yummy Vietnamese food.