Nguyễn Huệ Flower Street, a popular attraction in HCM City during the Tết (Lunar New Year) holidays every year. The city will organise a Tết Festival from January 3 to 5 at Lê Văn Tám Park in District 1. — VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — The Vietnam Cuisine Culture Association and the HCM City Department of Tourism will organise the Tết (Lunar New Year) Festival from January 3 to 5 at Lê Văn Tám Park in District 1.

The event will seek to promote Việt Nam’s culture and food and usher in a cheery and fun atmosphere ahead of the Lunar New Year, which falls at the end of January this year.

It will feature activities to help visitors, especially foreigners, experience traditional Tết rituals like making offerings to ancestors, a ceremony to welcome Giao Thừa (New Year’s Eve) and New Year greetings.

Around 100 stalls selling a variety of Tết dishes and specialties of the southern, central and northern regions will be set up.

Trays of traditional Tết dishes prepared by artisans will be displayed at the event while chefs from the Top Chef Vietnam contest will demonstrate how to cook them.

Visitors will have a chance to make bánh chưng (square cake) together with celebrities and culinary artisans and participate in traditional folk games at the event.

Bùi Tá Hoàng Vũ, director of the tourism department, said the city is often crowded with local and foreign tourists in January, and the festival would help them learn about the country’s culinary culture and the excitement generated by the New Year.

The festival would become an annual event, he added. 

The organisers expect to get 40,000 visitors. — VNS