As a dish, it is quite mediocre, tasting of crunchy shredded vegetables drowned in thick sweet sauce. Fish, what fish?
Hardly surprising, seeing that it consists mainly of julienne'd radish and carrots, soaked in cold water and then dried (for crispiness). It comes together with a miserable portion of transparent-thin slices of fish, from sai tou to salmon (priced accordingly). The garnishing includes packets lots of deep fried fritters, pickled ginger and fruit slices, jellyfish, peanuts, 5-spice powder, pepper and sesame seeds, with bowls of sesame oil and plum sauce. As the waitress sprinkle the condiments over the dish, she mutters supposedly well wishes for the new year with each condiment. Then the diners dig in with their chopsticks with shouts of LOU HEI! which supposedly invoke the gods to bring them fortune and luck.
The $30 or $40 dollars you pay for this dish in restaurants which probably cost $6 (including overheads) equates to a more than 500% margin. The 4 chefs (2 from Lai Wah Restaurant, 1 each from Dragon Pheonix and Sin Leong) who concocted this dish way back in the 60's were absolute geniuses. Too bad for them copyrights were way after their time. They would have racking it now.
Not only is this mediocre plate of piece priced way, way, way above the usual mark-up'd margins, justified by some ridiculous notion that its consumption will bring good luck and fortune, it is, godammit, not even a traditional Chinese New Year dish.
Good luck, good fortune? Dream on. In the meantime, the restaurant owners are laughing all the way to the bank, after reaping all your good luck and good fortune. Suckers!