Saturday, September 18, 2010

Mooncake Galore 2010

10 boxes of mooncakes, 4 hours of laughter, clicking & chats with great tea and homemade wantons. Our very own mooncake buffet @ Daniel's house...

It may sound like an impossible task to stomach so much variety of mooncakes but we did it at ease in an extremely happy mood. Reason being, the great company and warm hospitality.

Courtesy of Charlene from Foodoshoot

White Lotus Seed Paste with Double Yolk
White Lotus Seed Paste with Double Yolk

This is not the first time we have eaten Shangri-la mooncakes and no doubt, it is considered one of the better ones available in the market. Earlier on, we have blogged about their Plain White Lotus Seed Paste and naturally the presence of the egg yolks make it more moist.

Shangri-la mooncake 2010
Shangri-la Mooncake 2010 Order Form


Baked Mooncake with Single Yolk and White Lotus Paste
Baked Mooncake with Single Yolk and White Lotus Paste

Flatten egg yolk to ensure that it can be felt in every part of the mooncake and the main difference between this and Shangri-la's lies in the degree of sweetness. Overall, the skin is slightly more baked with a not so sweet and less sticky lotus paste.

Baked Mooncake with Macadamia Nuts and Low Sugar White Lotus Paste
Baked Mooncake with Macadamia Nuts and Low Sugar White Lotus Paste

The favourite among the baked mooncakes. Not only it is generously filled with macadamia nuts, the low sugar white lotus paste is relatively light on the palate.

Mandarin Orchard mooncake 2010
Mandarin Orchard (former Meritus Mandarin) Mooncake 2010 Order Form

Courtesy of Phoebe from The Food Chapter

Mini Special Egg Custard Mooncake with Egg Yolk
Mini Special Egg Custard Mooncake with Egg Yolk

A signature of Xin's Cuisine from Holiday Inn Artium. Chef Cheung Kin Nam's creation returns for the 22nd year. Fans of Hong Kong style's Egg Custard will be curious about this for its creamy moist custard filling wrapped around a salted yolk and baked to golden perfection. The key difference lies in its less buttery crust when compared to The Peninsula's counterparts. In addition, the sprinkle of edible gold flakes gives an elegant touch to the traditional mooncake.

Holiday Inn Mooncake 2010
Xin's Cuisine (Holiday Inn Atrium) Mooncake 2010 Order Form

Courtesy of Daniel from Memoirs of Food

鲜肉月饼
留园饭店 (Liu Yuan Restaurant, Hong Kong)
鲜肉月饼 (Fresh Pork Mooncake, if literally translated)

Technically speaking, this is not a mooncake but closer to a 生煎包. Have to admit after eating 1 round of baked mooncakes, this savoury mooncake was so much appreciated till the entire group finished all 4 of them. Doubt this will be available in Singapore as it contains pork so do ask your Hong Kong friends to purchase this for you.

Courtesy of Daniel from Memoirs of Food
This is the reason for organizing the mooncake potluck. We were all curious about the taste of this bum (from Goods of Desire) and hence has gotten Daniel's father to purchase one for us.

Spread my cheeks

If you have eaten Kee Wah, 奇华's mooncake, this bum mooncake tastes exactly the same as their traditional baked mooncake. The mooncake's main selling point lies in the excitement of not knowing which bum one ends up with and to make it even more sought after, pre-ordering is definitely a must if you want to lay your hands on.

Bum mooncakes description

The most memorable part of the mooncake? Try reading the label in English and get your friends to guess the type of bum.

Courtesy of Chloe from The Food Chapter

Man Fu Yuan (Hotel Intercontinental, Singapore) Snowskins
Green Tea Paste with Almond Flakes (yellow), Pumpkin Paste with Chocolate Pearls (green), Red Bean Paste with Melon Seeds (pink) and Black Sesame Paste with White Sesame Seeds (white) from Hotel Intercontinental, Singapore.

In general, the snowskin of all 4 flavours are overwhelmed by the strong infused filling. Of the 4 flavours, Yuan's preference inclined towards the pumpkin paste while the black sesame paste caught my attention. Kudos to the filling but the snowskin falls short in expectation as it was quite tough.

Man Fu Yuan mooncake 2010
Man Fu Yuan Mooncake 2010 Order Form


Mini Bing Pi Green Tea Paste
Mini Bing Pi Green Tea Paste

Taste is pretty much similar to last year. Consistent with an even prettier packaging. To answer to the comments posted in our previous post, the green tea is infused with lotus paste.

Ritz Carlton Millenia Order Form
Ritz Carlton Millenia Mooncake Order 2010

Courtesy of Elaine from Divine Essentials

Jewels Artisan Chocolates' Snowskin
Mini Snow-Skin Mooncake with Dark Chocolate Crunchy Pearl (green)
Mini Snow-Skin Mooncake with Salted Caramel Truffle (pink)
Mini Snow-Skin Mooncake with Champagne Ganache Truffle (white)

Our comments are pretty much similar to our previous post but this time round, we realized that the Salted Caramel Truffle receives more attention from the other 2.

Jewels mooncake 2010
Jewels Artisan Chocolates Mooncake 2010 Order Form

Courtesy of Glenn from Hungry Epicurean

Snowskin Mooncake with Champagne Truffle & Ganache
Snowskin Mooncake with Champagne Truffle & Ganache

This has been consistently good and also a perennial favourite year upon year. Comparing with Jewels Artisan Chocolate, Raffles Hotel triumphs in terms of the creamy white lotus paste and perfect snow-skin while the former outwins in terms of the Champagne Truffle.

Raffles Hotel Mooncake 2010
Raffles Hotel Mooncake 2010 Order form

Courtesy of Zhi Hao from Foodoshoot

Tung Lok Snowskin
(From Front to Back)
Low Sugar Red Beans with Champagne Truffle
Mocha with Bailey's Truffle

Of the 2, our preference inclined more towards the red bean for a lighter taste.

Tung Lok mooncake 2010
Tung Lok Mooncake 2010 Order Form

Courtesy of Lay Sian from Memoirs of Food


Teochew Crispy Mooncakes with Yam Double Yolk From Zhen Wei
Teochew Crispy Mooncakes with Yam Double Yolk From Zhen Wei

Frankly, we are not a fan of this type of mooncake but judging from the excitement of the group and the smile across everybody's faces when presented with these mooncakes from Zhen Wei. We know that it was the preferred one over Peony Jade's for its crispy filo sheets.

Zhen Wei Mooncake 2010
Zhen Wei Mooncake 2010 Order Form

Courtesy of Daniel from Memoirs of Food

'Original
The Original Ex-Crown Prince Flaky Teochew "Oor Nee" Mooncake with Single Egg Yolk and Golden Japanese Pumpkin

I guess this needs no more elaboration on how good it is for it is the most talk-about and famous Ex-Crown Prince Teochew "Oor Nee" mooncake.

Peony Jade Mooncake Order Form 2010
Peony Jade Mooncake 2010 (Partial) Order Form

Definitely looking forward to the next meet-up. Mooncakes are indeed the nicest when paired with tea and shared with great company.

The beauties, the hunks and the delicious...

Guess we need a break from the tonnes of calories loaded for today. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to everybody... 中秋节快乐...

To view fellow bloggers' posts, here they are...
Charlene: Mid Autumn Festival 2010: Mooncake Party!
Phoebe: Of Jade Rabbits and Shooting Suns: Mid Autumn is all about friendship
Daniel: Mid Autumn Festival 2010: Feast with Friends!

13 comments:

Daniel said...

Got so fast anot?! Ahaha!

SLYuan said...

Ya Fen wanted to publish asap as the mooncake festival is next Wednesday. So we added in all the order forms as well for those last minute shoppers

red fir said...

I've had my fill of mooncakes this year from every place imaginable but my favorite is Peony Jade's orh nee with golden Japanese pumpkin for its incredibly smooth yam paste & sweet pumpkin. It's not sweet too. The trick is to warm the mooncake up in the oven & it'll be really delicious.

Jer Lin said...

omg each of you had four mooncakes today? this reminds me of a mooncake buffet haha!

Fen said...

Daniel: Either I get it done last night or I will only publish it weeks later >.< Guess it is better to get it out when my memory is still fresh =)

Ice: Saw some of your photos on flickr... Seriously, I do miss your writing...

It was warmed up for yesterday's batches of mooncakes but I guessed Teochew Filo mooncakes aren't my cup of tea... Have to admit the smell of yam was heavenly...

Stargirl: We didn't expect to end up with so many boxes of mooncakes. Guess everybody is very spontaneous...

foodaholic said...

*jaw drop* that's wayyyy to fast! haha nonetheless great writeup! Impressed that you took the effort to post the order forms even. ^^

Daniel said...

Just dug out a little piece of trivia:

Zhen Wei's parent company is none other than 1A Curry Puff! No wonder for the similar texture!

Fen said...

Phoebe: Thank you for the compliment.

I was hoping this will be useful for last minute purchasers. As for the forms, I have collected them before hand to decide on what to buy and using their photos as a guide in taking photos so it wasn't difficult at all to convert into jpeg. =)

Daniel: I realize that too, recall reading from their brochure...

Actually from Yuan's pic of the mooncake, the filo sheet does look like a 1A curry puff.

Charlene said...

OMG! So fast leh! hahaha *stressed* and very detailed too!

Unknown said...

wahhh! Detailed and informative post! The pictures were very good and the order forms make it easier for people reading your blog place their orders. :) too bad the dumplings and the tea we had were not desserts. They were great nonetheless.

Fen said...

Charlene: Please don't be stressed... The main thing is to enjoy the process of blogging =)

Zhi Hao: First most, nice to meet you...

I was wondering how to put the pricing alongside with the mooncakes. So putting the order forms make things alot easier.

Yuan didn't take the photos of the dumplings and tea, if not that will definitely be part of the post.

HungryTrotters said...

Wow you really had mooncake galore! I'm sure with the number of mooncakes you had at Daniel's place, that's good enough not to miss it until next mooncake festival! I wonder how a bum mooncake taste like? :) It did look wild enough to be eaten. :)

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival foodies! :)

Fen said...

The bum mooncake is a traditional lotus paste mooncake with a single yolk.

Comparing with Shangri-la and Mandarin Orchard, the lotus paste is stickier and isn't teeth-friendly. The skin is very moist and thin.

Guess it is more on the novelty factor that people buy it for since the type of bums are purely random and will only be revealed when the box is opened.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you too. =)

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