Mooncakes at Sheraton Towers Hotel. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Problem
Mooncakes - what are they? They are expensive - which sort should I buy?
Answers
TRY
You can try before you buy at Sheraton Towers Hotel, Singapore. They have a sampling plate with two varieties, the cheapest mixed nuts and another with the dearer egg.
You want to know what you are getting. The prices for a box of four range from S$72 (that's 72 Singaporean dollars, not American dollars) to S$108 for double egg yolk.
GIFT BOXES
Who buys a presentation box? This mid-autumn festival is like Christmas for the Chinese. You give gifts to business contacts. I guess that many visitors will buy a box to take home to family and friends.
If you are feeling flush, with a business budget, or want to reciprocate to somebody whose company has paid for your hotel stay, go for the most expensive 4 pieces of white lotus seed paste with double egg yok at £108.
The traditional mooncakes have a pastry covering like a pie. The pattern stamped on the top comes from a wooden casing used during the cooking. I bought one second hand at a sale from a Chinese resident who was going to the USA. It was a novelty. I never used it, after I discovered how time-consuming and complicated it was to make mooncakes!
The snowskin version is in white or contrasting or compelmentary colours such as pink and purple. They look lovely, but I prefer the traditional pastry casing.
If you want to share around an office of eight or fewer people, a bigger box of six pieces of the mini snowskin mooncakes costs only $62 for 8 pieces.
SLICES
Why only four pieces for all that money? A family of four would get one each. However, as you see from the sample plate, a mooncake can be cut up into eight or more bite-size pieces to share with a group, after a meal or at a party, and they are very filling. It is usual to cut up the round or square mooncakes into triangular slices, like slicing a cake.
Double egg mooncake.
When I first tried mooncakes, I was not enamoured with the egg yolk. I felt that bits of boiled egg were taking up space which could have been occupied by the sugary and more unusual tasting filling.
Their locations include the restaurant which produces them:
Li Bai Cantonese Restaurant.
Other outlets are in two more restaurant locations:
Sheraton Towers hotel Singapore lobby.
Full of luck Restaurant @Holland Village
Also Takashimaya department store and several shopping malls
Change Alley
Junction 8
Jurong Point
Tampines Mall
Takashimaya (in Ngee Ann City building, a landmark on Orchard Road).
You can buy them during the autumn festival, until September 23rd at Junction B, Jurong Poing and Tampines Mall, unto the 24th at the other outlets.
Look out for mooncakes in Chinese restaurants, supermerkets and shops all over the world. You should be able to find cheaper ones in Taiwan. You can also buy online.
Li Bai Cantonese restaurant takeslarge orders. You have to wait a couple of days. They charge $50 delivery, which is waived if you order 50 or more boxes. Who has that kind of budget? If you've read the book or watched the film Crazy Rich Asians (locals say it should be called Crazy Rich Singaporeans), you will know that some people do.
The film has been showing in Singapore and is going worldwide in September 2018.
What's New
You can also order mooncake ice creams from ice cream shops.
Last year I was in London, England and asked for a mooncake. My family were able to buy one from Changi Airport in Singapore.
Classic mooncake.
What's inside?
Mooncake with nuts. This one has small pieces of nut.
Exotic fruit flavours.
Useful Websites
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2018/07/diy-mooncakes-what-is-in-mooncake.html
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
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