Last Chance To Buy Mooncakes? Dash to Singaporean Centres

Mooncakes were displayed at a pop up counter in the grand lobby atrium of the Sheraton Towers Hotel in Singapore where I attended at meeting of the Toastmasters Club of Singapore. The speakers group was meeting, as usual on the first three Mondays of the month, above the hotel lobby, but I could not resist stopping to try a sample of mooncakes and pick up a leaflet.

The mooncakes were made by the chefs of the Cantonese Li Bai restaurant, which is in the basement level of the Sheraton Hotel. What does Li Bai mean? Li Bai was a famous Tang dynasty poet who lived in the 700s, to be exact 701-762, so he died having reached the grand age of 60. Did he eat well? Did he eat mooncakes? When were they invented? I don't know if he ate well but it seems he drank well, inspired to write more than 1000 poems which are still in the syllabus for Chinese schoolchildren today.

Li Bai, or Li Bo, the poet, was fond of wine, and the Li Bai restaurant leaflet shows vodka beside a mooncake. Li Bai, legend says, drowned after falling out of a boat trying to grab the reflection on the moon in the water.

The cover of the leaflet shows how the snow skin coloured mooncakes can be prettily presented. You can serve one (pink) mooncake in the saucer centre of a white lattice mini plate. Two contrasting colour mooncakes (they show yellow and green) can be served on a larger white plate.

A single white mooncake, or two or more can be presented on a silver edged larger plate, eaten with a modern slender silver pastry fork with a handle shaped like a slim pencil.

Mooncakes in Singapore are elaborate and you can buy them in pretty cardboard or metal boxes or wooden boxes which can be saved for keeping trinkets or costume jewellery, stationery, precious photos or paper, displayed in a glass cabinet, or whatever you like. The most expensive of this restaurants' boxes, a wooden box containing four pieces costs $168 (Singapore dollars - about £84!) are elegant gifts for esteemed clients.

According to the leaflet, mooncakes are available from 15 August until 15 September 2016 (the festival dates following the lunar calendar used by the Chinese as well as traditional Jewish and Muslim calendars).

The moon cakes have been sold at:
Li Bai Cantonese Restaurant
15 August - 15 September 2016
11.30 am to 10.30 pm

Sheraton Towers Singapore Hotel Lobby
15 August-15 September 2016
11 am - 9.30 pm
(Nearest MRT railway station Newton)
Pictures of the hotel in my previous posts

Takashima (city centre department store in Ngee Ann City on Orchard Road)
13 August - 15 September
10 am to 10 pm

Tampines Mall (Green East-West line, four stops from Changi airport, change at Tanah Merah)
31 August to 14 September

Jurong Point (in the west of the island)
29 August - 14 September 2016
9.30 am to- 10.30 pm

Change Alley
15 August to 15 September 2016
10 am - 7 pm (weekdays only)

Pick up a leaflet. After the event, you can read about the mooncake selection and plan your tastings and purchases for next year.

www.sheratonsingapore.com
More about mooncakes in my previous posts.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.