The first meal of the Chinese New Year is customarily Lo Han Jai (罗汉斋) or Buddha's Delight (Buddhist Vegetarian Stew). Lo Han Jai is a vegetarian dish consists of various vegetables and other vegetarian ingredients usually it is make up by 18 or 28 ingredients and cooked in soy sauce-based liquid with other seasonings until tender. But some of the ingredients are more than components, they are symbolic and often homonyms (sound-alike words) of good things. It is a meal shared by family members.

Lo Han Jai traditionally served in Chinese households on the first day of the Chinese New Year, stemming from the old Buddhist practice that one should maintain a vegetarian diet in the first five days of the new year, as a form of self-purification. Some of the ingredients, such as Fat Choy and arrowhead, are generally only eaten at this time of year.

Buddha's delight is a well knows Chinese vegetarian cuisine. Typically this dishes enjoyed by Buddhist monks but had began become as a popular vegetarian dishes at Chinese restaurants around the world. Lo Han Jai is a rich vegetarian stew of exotic vegetables, seeds, nuts and noodles. This traditional Chinese New Year "monk's food" offers a copious mixture of textures and hues, from greens to browns, gold and white.

The Chinese connect the eating of meat with man's animal nature and think of a vegetable diet as more spiritual than one including meat. Thus it is customary that the first meal of the New Year be completely vegetarian.

Jai actually is the Chinese word for principle. The words 'Lo Han Jai' it means the 500 disciples of Buddha; so Jai is really the principles of Buddha. Buddhism taught that you don't eat any meat and you don't slaughter any animals. It (Jai) came to be the name of the dish. It's strictly vegetarian food. The Taoist and Buddhist monks eat all forms of Jai. Jai is a different form of cooking; when you say Jai food, it's vegetarian food."