The spread of food: Typically Singaporean, with Malay satay and Indian roti prata, as well as traditional Chinese fare like dim sum.
As the guests prepared to tuck in, Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam gave them some food for thought.
Pointing to his presence at the annual Chinese reception, he said: "It's normal, not a novelty or something very unusual."
Multiracial and multi-cultural. That's a distinctive quality of Singapore that Mr Tharman wants to reinforce as part of our national identity.
He delivered his Chinese New Year greetings in Mandarin, received oranges and handed hongbao to a child.
The annual reception is organised by the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations (SFCCA), networking group Business China and the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC).
Mr Tharman suggested three vital ingredients for enriching Singapore's uniqueness.
1. Evolve, adapt and strengthen our own cultures and take a keen interest in each other's cultures and participate in them wherever possible.
"This will allow us to deepen our Singapore identity, and take real pride in multiculturalism in Singapore," he added.
2. Integrate new immigrants so that they can understand and preserve Singapore's multicultural ways,
This could include helping them learn some local languages, and mixing with the local community.
"If we do it well, over time they too will contribute to evolving our culture, but very importantly, it also means ensuring immigrants assimilate within our multicultural environment," he said.
3. Maintain the Singaporean quality of giving back to society, schools and community groups.
"There is something in our cultural identities that was about the ethos of contributing to the community," he said, adding it was for this very reason of helping each other that clan associations were formed.
While this came naturally to a generation that went through great hardship, the quality needs to be nurtured in today's young, Mr Tharman said.
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