Where to celebrate Lunar New Year with dumplings in Sydney

• A field guide to five Chinese dumplings

Few foods are more popular with Sydneysiders than Chinese dumplings, those little parcels of meat and vegetables wrapped in pastry, steamed or maybe fried.

"Dumplings are easy to eat, you can order lots of them, and traditionally they're quite cheap," says Victor Liong, co-executive chef of Chuuka, The Star's Chinese-Japanese fusion restaurant on Jones Bay Wharf.

"Essentially, there's an iteration of the dumpling in cuisines from Japan to Hungary and everybody loves them. It doesn't matter if the dumpling is a tortellini, a Nepalese momo or Korean mandu."

From January 25, it will be all about har gows and wontons in Sydney, however, when a fortnight of Chinese New Year celebrations begin, welcoming the Year of the Rat. The Star has already launched its Chinese New Year specials, and the casino complex expects to serve more than 30,000 dumplings across its restaurants over the next three weeks.

"Chinese New Year is food-centric," says Liong. "It's not really religious or spiritual, you just eat. It's very easy to jump on the celebration train."

Massive dumpling turnover is everyday business at Mr Wong, where executive chef Dan Hong estimates the modern Cantonese restaurant in the CBD makes around 20,000 of the dim sum staples a week.

"Our biggest sellers at lunch are the scallop siu mai, wagyu truffle puff and har gow," he says. "At night, every table orders the dim sum platter."

Hong says Chinese dumplings have become increasingly popular with Sydney diners as the variety available has "blown up" past the Cantonese-style yum cha offerings most common in the 20th century. Cooking teacher and author Tony Tan agrees.

"Particularly in the past couple of decades, we've seen more migration from northern China and whole different styles of dumplings," says Tan. "We can't really think about Chinese food now without thinking about dumplings – the phenomenon has really grown."

Liong says it is important a dumpling is never overcooked. "There's nothing worse than a flabby, leaky dumpling that's spent too long in the steamer. The meat can't be too lean either, it needs to be juicy."

Hong looks for a dumpling filling with fresh ingredients and lots of texture. "That's how I judge a really good har gow," he says. "You want to bite into a prawn and know it's a prawn."

The chef points to Chinatown Noodle Restaurant in Haymarket as one of his favourite places for dumplings in Sydney, plus Yang's in Burwood. "Yang's makes the proper Shanghai-style sheng jian bao, which is that pan-fried dumpling full of juice," he says. "You have to be so careful when you're eating one otherwise you'll burn your mouth."

For Lunar New Year, Mr Wong's dim sum master, Michael Luo, has created two special edition dumplings priced at $18 each.

"Chinese New Year represents luxury and prosperity so we always use extravagant ingredients," says Hong. "We will have a steamed king crab and caviar dumpling, plus a fried puff dumpling layered with char siu pork belly and topped with black truffle."

Meanwhile, for Sydneysiders keen on prosperity dumplings at lower price point, Din Tai Fung is celebrating Lunar New Year with a "good fortune" jiaozi of wagyu beef and truffle topped with edible gold. Five of the limited edition dumplings, at $21.60, will be available at all Din Tai Fung stores from January 23.

Hong says it is important diners show restraint with the soy sauce bottle.

"If I'm eating Cantonese dim sum, I'll only use chilli sauce on dumplings," he says.

"If the dumpling needs soy sauce, I'll add it, but I'm not going to dip a dumpling in soy sauce before tasting it, because most of them don't need it."