This week’s Hot List activity

• This week’s most trending restaurant: Marmont (runner-up: Marmelo)
• This week’s most trending bar: Le Splendide (runner-up: Albert’s)
• This week’s most trending cafe: Masses Bagels (runner-up: Moon Mart)

How The Hot List’s venues are celebrating the Year of the Snake

On Wednesday January 29, the Year of the Dragon draws to a close and makes way for the Year of the Snake. For a range of Melbourne's Asian restaurants, it’s bound to be one of the busiest nights of the year. Plenty of spots are getting in on the celebrations around town, including some of our Hot List favourites.

Been considering one last trip to Sunda before it closes? There are plenty of bookings available before it shuts in a few days’ time, and for its last weekly special, the restaurant is doing a Taiwanese-inspired rendition of drunken chicken for Lunar New Year. It’s brined in sugar and soy, then marinated in Shaoxing wine for 48 hours and then lightly poached. The half-chicken dish, which comes with a couple of sides, is $88 and only available by pre-ordering when you book. Now that’s a strong way to finish.

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Sunda’s younger sibling Aru is also getting in on the Lunar New Year action with its own pre-orderable dishes: lamb spring rolls and a half-lobster with XO noodles. Those two will be available until February 12.

Elsewhere in the CBD, Chinese institution Lee Ho Fook is celebrating the new year in a variety of ways – from special menus and dishes to activations and even a special online shop. While the Hot-Listed Dodee Paidang Little Collins Street is still closed for renovations until February 6, its sister locations on Swanston Street and in Glen Waverley are selling Hokkien noodles for Lunar New Year until February 9. Plus, if you spend $50 or more at Dodee Paidang between now and February 9, you’ll get a scratch card with chances to win a bunch of special prizes.

South of the river, Yugen Dining is putting on a special five-course Lunar New Year banquet menu themed around good luck and prosperity. It’ll only be around for one week, so be sure to book in.

Looking for less of a sit-down feast and more of a stand-up shindig? Potluck over in Caulfield is having the most high-energy party: it’s doing a karaoke night for Lunar New Year. So book in, BYO a bottle of something fun, and starting warming up your vocal cords – you won’t want to miss this one.

Lastly, over in St Kilda, Stokehouse, the beachside fine diner whose menu typically leans more European, is offering a special Lunar New Year menu on January 28 and 29. It’ll feature dishes such as coral trout with abalone and tuna XO sauce and Abrolhos Islands scallops in ginger dressing.

A new cookbook from Enter Via Laundry’s Helly Raichura

Enter Via Laundry is one of the Hot List’s finest restaurants, and it’s at the crest of a wave of Indian restaurants that are redefining Indian cuisine in Melbourne. Now, it’s owner-chef Helly Raichura has announced a new cookbook, The Food of Bharat, a trip through Indian history, aiming to showcase the culture’s lesser-known dishes and ingredients. It’s available for pre-order now, and we can’t wait to get our hands on it.

Marmont’s Fire Fundraiser this weekend is a celebration of LA

The fear of bushfire is something that Australians feel every summer. And looking at the devastation that’s been wrought upon Los Angeles in recent weeks, it’s hard not to think back to the horrors of our own Black Saturday fires in 2009. One of the most heartening silver linings from that time was the international donations and messages of support that were sent Australia’s way. Now, we have a chance to repay the favour and help California out. Marmont, whose owner Grant Smillie has deep ties to LA (including popular venues EP & LP, Strings of Life and Grandmaster Recorders) is holding an all-day fundraiser this Sunday January 26. One hundred per cent of proceeds will be donated towards fire relief, and there’ll be DJs playing throughout the day. If you’d been meaning to get to the most popular restaurant on The Hot List, this Sunday’s the day to do it.