With the Chinese Lunar New Year just around the corner, restaurants across the country are busy filling orders for the New Year's Eve family reunion dinner with sumptuous dishes and innovative dining concepts.

The Chinese New Year's Eve reunion dinner is considered as the most important meal of the year for Chinese families.

On an old street of Jinan City, east China's Shandong Province, a restaurant built in a Chinese quadrangle courtyard is attracting diners with its traditional architecture, authentic flavor of Shandong cuisines and folk art performances including Clapper Talk, a form of oral storytelling with the rhythm from the crashing of bamboo boards.

The restaurant has designed some special dishes for the upcoming Year of the Dragon.

"[We have] 'Carp Jumping Over the Dragon Gate,' 'Dragons Playing with Pearls,' and 'Dragons Jumping Out of Sea.' In particular, the 'Carp Jumping Over the Dragon Gate' is a beautified version of the classic Shandong cuisine 'sweet and sour crap,' wishing people a surplus of wealth and prosperity in the new year," said Huang Guibin, the restaurant manager.

Fish is a homophone for 'surplus' or 'abundance' in Chinese, making it an indispensable part of Spring Festival recipes. The "Carp Jumping Over the Dragon Gate" is an ancient Chinese folklore that has developed into a metaphor for success in study or career.

Hotpot is another popular delicacy that many people in southwest China can't live without. The Minzhu Village in Chongqing Municipality is famous for an impressive array of hotpot restaurants. As the Spring Festival holiday approaches, the restaurants have been bustling with food-obsessed diners and seeing a surge in bookings. Some regular customers even start making reservations for the holiday half a month in advance.

"We all have hot pot for the reunion dinner on the Chinese New Year's Eve. It makes people warm and comfortable. We have so far received over 200 table reservations. There could be more during the period from the 25th [of the 12th month of the lunar calendar] to the Chinese New Year's Eve," said Guo Yongfa, a hotpot restaurant owner in Minzhu Village.

The Spring Festival, which falls on Feb 10 this year, is China's most important festival and an occasion for family reunions. This year's holiday season runs from Feb 10 to 17.