Mid-Autumn 2018

Yesterday was the light-up ceremony and fireworks displays for Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festival 2018 though it usually takes place after Hungry Ghost Festival – today is the last day. Two more weeks to buy mooncakes as Mid-Autumn Festival falls on 24 Sep (Mon). What stood out at this year's Takashimaya Mooncake Fair was that many added macadamia nuts to their traditional mooncakes without salted egg yolks, and most of the lotus paste was too sweet for my liking. To indulge your loved ones who should not be eating sweet stuff, try the a-tad-sweeter mooncakes from Shangri-La Hotel or The Ritz Carlton. Or get the ones from Mandarin Orchard, Wan Hao Chinese Restaurant by Singapore Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel or Golden Peony by Conrad Centennial Singapore if you do not have a sweet tooth. Could not resist the latter's 40% discount and got its Golden Peony Traditional Baked Treasures, choosing the champagne cream box over the crimson red one for the 4 pieces of mooncakes in different flavours. Hoping to reuse the box, just like the one from Man Fu Yuan by Intercontinental Singapore that I bought 2 years ago.

Grand Hyatt still has 4 baked and 9 snowskin flavours to choose from – instead of just snowskin black sesame, walnut truffle is now added. Other new snowskin flavours are acai berry truffle, basil green apple and trigona honey truffle, and teh tarik and chocolate truffle. In an earlier post, I mentioned Summer Palace by Regent Singapore for its traditional baked white lotus paste with melon seed mooncakes as well as the snowskin ones with signature black sesame paste (out goes II Dolcetto, and granny smith with lemongrass chocolate) and durian. This year, they took it a notch higher with barrel-aged Sazerac 6-year-old rye with coffee and chocolate, and barrel-aged La Louisiana cocktail with yuzu and green bean paste. While both were good, I was more impressed with how well the flavours came together in the former. For non-lotus-paste-lover, Peach Garden has moved from kumquat paste, red date paste with wolfberries, and yuzu paste with orange peel to red bean with orange peel paste, black and white sesame paste, sundried longan infused with red tea paste, and black dates with melon seed paste.

You may also be interested in Mid-Autumn 2012 – Mooncakes Galore, Mid-Autumn 2013 – Part II, Mid-Autumn 2014, Mid-Autumn 2015, Mid-Autumn 2016 and Mid-Autumn 2017.