Binge - Mooncake Handbags and Last Minute Mooncake Must-Buys

Can you believe this is a mooncake box? I just couldn't resist posting it here at the top. Read more about it below.....

Five days more to Mid Autumn Festival (22 Sept) and I notice – rather delayed I admit – that this year, marketers are pushing family reunions as a focal point for the festival and gifting of mooncakes. Cynics may say you can trust marketers to find any way to sell something, but through rose-tinted spectacles, it is not a bad concept. Considering families are getting so small these days, I’m all for adopting this notion…After all, ‘lo hei’ during Chinese New Year came about in the same way and see how entrenched it is now?

In any case, simply fab ladies are enjoying life too much to be bogged down by cynicism. So heave out the extended family this weekend and do a post-dinner, moonlight dessert thing with the moon cakes, lanterns and Chinese tea. We’ve discovered a few more mooncake options out there, so if you haven’t already bought or gifted any, give these lovelies a look.

We love this disarmingly chic mooncake ‘handbag’ by Tung Lok (background). Sling the silk handles over your shoulder and no one would know that its mooncake you’re carrying. So fashion forward on the outside, yet embodies a traditional ‘auntie’ soul inside! What lies inside? Four assorted mooncakes - mixed nuts, egg yolk pandan lotus with pistachios, egg yolk white lotus and egg yolk red lotus. ($52 at most Tung Lok restaurants)

Tel: 9088 8008

Speaking of handbags, this gorgeous red number just arrived at my doorstep yesterday evening and it’s the cutest thing ever! Doesn't it just remind you of some luxe designer handbag, right down to the metallic chain and name tag? This limited edition sweetie is the work of the chefs at Xin Cuisine Holiday Inn Atrium in Outram Road, with two neat tiers inside for four mooncakes. Well known for updating traditional local flavours, the restaurant offers a particularly interesting and workable range of creative mooncakes - Champagne and Chocolate mooncake with pandan-infused lotus paste and a white chocolate truffle; bird's nest and red lotus seed paste; kirsch cherry mooncake and mini green tea mooncake with chocolate pearls. Creative, but no out into orbit. Plus they have the traditional Teochew yam paste mooncake too. This is absolute lusciousness and a definite must-buy!
Tel: 6731 7173

Apart from traditional baked mooncakes – which is a flat out favourite anyway – Hilton Singapore’s highlights are the mini cheese mooncakes (left) based on their famous cheesecakes. New flavours are Peach Melba, Hazelnut Cream, Passion Fruit and Chilli, and Chocolate and Strawberry, but they have also brought back last year’s favourites - Mango and Pecan, Rose and Chocolate Pearls, Strawberry and Ivory, and Berry Treat. Eight of these dainty mooncakes go into an ‘imperial box’ and are on sale at Checkers Deli and Takashimaya Square.

Tel: +65 6730 3392

All Chang-Er wannabes, go get your birds nest fix with Tian Fu Tea Room’s Bird’s Nest with Egg Custard Snow Skin Mooncakes. Sounds like something that will give your skin a boost, and certainly something that grandma would approve of. Also for the girls is Passion Fruit with Rose Paste in Snow Skin, a new flavour this year. The mooncakes here are all with lower sugar content. Get it nicely packaged as a gift, either with or without matching teas at Tian Fu Tea Room outlets at PARKROYAL on Beach Road and TOP of UOB Plaza 1, or at the takeaway Counter at OUB Central.

Tel: 6505 5722

Finally, the Marriott Singapore has rolled out some new flavours: Peanut Butter Jelly Snowskin Mooncake mixed with lotus paste (above) and a zesty Calamansi Cheese Snowskin Mooncake. If that’s too weird for you, there’s also the more traditional White Lotus Seed Paste with Dried Figs mooncake.But for me, the one that’s really off into orbit is the Chicken Bak-Kwah and Assorted Nuts mooncake (above). Obviously it has its followers, but I’d rather stick to less creative combinations personally, foodwriter notwithstanding! Available at Forecourt Stall at the hotel entrance.

Tel: 6831 4708

- Ee Waun