Goodwood Park Hotel
A perennial favourite at Goodwood Park Hotel is the D24 durian paste mooncake, and this year, fans have another option to satiate their cravings - the new limited edition mega mao shan wang snow-skin mooncake is a 12-centimetre hunk of guilty pleasure, generously filled with luscious durian pulp. On the lighter end of the spectrum is the lychee with lime marshmallow snow-skin mooncake, a fruity, zesty treat flecked with juicy bits of lychee.
Available at Goodwood Park Hotel's Deli, Tel: 6730 1867 / 1868
Grand Hyatt
Taking a cue from the concoctions at its ever-popular Martini Bar, Grand Hyatt Singapore presents some exciting cocktail-inspired snow-skin mooncakes. Try the new chocolate crispy truffle mooncake if you like some crunch in your confections, as well as flavours like the delightfully creamy coconut Malibu and subtly fragrant sakura flower cherry. Popular favourites of durian, lychee martini truffle and champagne truffle are also worth the extra calories.
Available at The Shop at Mezza9, Tel: 6887 5492, theshop.sg@hyatt.com
InterContinental Singapore
Luxuriously smooth and sweet, Man Fu Yuan's signature high mountain sweet potato mooncakes with champagne chocolate is the brainchild of chef Simon Poon, who started using sweet potato as a key ingredient four years ago. The Snowskin Mooncake Combination set packs a combination of classic and more innovative flavours - green tea paste mooncake with fragrant dragonball jasmine tea-infused skin; custard with salted egg yolk; red bean paste with melon; and black sesame paste with white sesame seeds.
Available until September 11 at locations including Tea Hut (entrance of InterContinental Singapore from Bugis Junction), Suntec City and Vivo City (until September 12), Tel: 6820 8519 or 6820 8520
Majestic Restaurant
Coffee lovers will surely appreciate the mini snow-skin with kopi luwak that chef Yong Bing Ngen has created, which incorporates the full-bodied flavour of this rare Indonesian coffee. Another caffeineted treat is the mini fresh milk snow-skin with ‘yuan yang' paste, inspired by the popular Hong Kong beverage that mixes coffee with milk tea. The mini snow-skin with Kwai Feh lychee liquer is an enduring favourite, and with a white bean paste filling flavoured with red wine and encased in the liquer-infused snow-skin, it's not hard to see why. There are also a few low sugar baked mooncakes for the more health-conscious.
Available at Majestic Restaurant at New Majestic Hotel, Tel: 6511 4718
Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore
Expect some delicious Asian flavours from Ritz-Carlton's Summer Pavilion, as chef de cuisine, Fok Kai Yee introduces two new mooncakes. The white lotus seed paste with osmanthus is accentuated with the dainty flowers and crunchy melon seeds, while the white lotus seed paste with black sesame offers a nice balance of sweet and savoury. Fans of their signature green tea paste and lycheetini mooncakes will also be glad to welcome them back this year.
Available at Summer Pavilion and island-wide locations including Millenia Walk, Takashimaya, and Raffles City. Tel: 6434 5286, rc.sinrz.summerpavillion@ritzcarlton.com
Shangri-La Hotel
If you prefer traditional baked mooncakes, head straight to Shangri-La Hotel. This year, chef Steven Ng of Shang Palace has come up with five new baked mooncake flavours. In addition to classic white lotus seed paste mooncakes (with and without yolks), Ng has also used red date paste with melon seeds, creating a mooncake with a touch of sweetness, tartness, and bite. Can't get enough of savoury yolks? Indulge in the baked white lotus seed paste with four yolks.
Available at Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore and shopping malls including Chevron House, ION Orchard and Takashimaya. Tel: 6213 4448 or 6213 4473
St Regis Singapore
Yan Ting at St Regis Singapore presents a mooncake selection that emphasises traditional Cantonese flavours, offering four new snow-skin creations. The lovely passionfruit with custard paste and yolk boasts the sweet tartness of the fruit mingling with the creamy custard and savouriness of the single yolk. Equally delightful are the mooncakes with classic ingredients - red bean paste with lotus seeds; yam paste with gingko nuts; and green tea with yolk.
Available at Yan Ting and LaBoutique (lobby level of St Regis Singapore), Tel: 6506 6893,yanting@stregis.com
Tung Lok
Offering something different, Tung Lok's traditional Teochew-style mooncakes are encased in a non-greasy, baked pastry that is meltingly soft, creating a nice balance with the sweet yam paste and salty egg yolk within. They've also ventured into using fruits, coming up with the zesty orange peel lotus snow-skin mooncakes and citrusy passion fruit pomelo lotus mooncakes.
Teochew-style mooncakes are only available at Tung Lok Classics at Orchard Parade Hotel, all other flavours are available at all Tung Lok Restaurants, Tel: 9088 8008
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Mooncakes Reviews by Makansutra -
The Lowdown:
It's time of the year where mooncakes are selling at every corner of Singapore. Though the Mooncake Festival is on 24 September, many hotels, restaurants and confectionery shops have started selling since late August. Every year, the competition gets stiffer with newer and more novel ideas of presenting mooncakes in every imaginable edible form. There are so many adulterated forms of mooncakes out in the market now and sometimes you just wonder which to try. Some have become a perennial favourite that they may join the stable of traditional mooncakes soon (like the flaky pastry with yam filling) while the others are just simply experiments--they come and go with no staying power.
With so many to choose from, where should you buy your mooncakes from? To try and give makankakis (food buddies) some good recommendations, Makansutra decides to do a blind taste test with seven makanmatas (food police) on 48 (so precise huh!) mooncakes from 12 establishments all at one sitting. At the end of the 3-hour test, with a bloated stomach from all the mooncakes and Chinese tea, the exhausted makanmatas (believe us, eating can be hard work!) present you with our recommendations.
Before we start, just to give an introduction-- mooncakes are usually perceived to be very sweet stuff. Surprisingly in this blind test, we discover that generally, mooncakes nowadays are just pleasantly sweet and not overloaded with sugar. So, even if you don't have a sweet tooth, you can still enjoy feasting on our recommendations.
Pine Court |
The Chempedak with Lotus Seed Paste is an interesting concoction with a unique taste. Somehow, the chempedak manages to blend in quite well with the taste of the lotus paste and we rather like it. It gets an almost unanimous 2-chopstick rating.
The Millenium Mooncake is another favourite. We wonder why the name "millenium" as it is just the usual lotus paste with egg yolk. Though slightly oily, it gets a 2- chopstick for its smooth texture. Fancy liquor in your mooncake? The Snow Skin with Marnier has a subtle liquor taste and is graded 1 ½ -chopstick.
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Shang Palace
| The most outstanding mooncake among its selection is theAssorted Nuts with Kum Toy (Chinese ham)-with a 2-chopstick rating. The pastry is thin and filled with tasty nuts and Chinese ham bits. |
Empress Room
 | The Mini Snow-Skin Mooncake with Champagne Truffle & Ganache and Mini Snow-Skin Mooncake with Cream Cheese and Gold Raisins (2-chopstick each) are so delightful though they taste nothing like Chinese mooncakes, more like Western desserts. We wonder if these are induction mooncakes made for the ang mohs (Westerners) to introduce their first taste to mooncakes?
Now comes the "die, die must try" rating of 3-chopstick! The Baked Mini Mooncake with Yolk and Macadamia Nuts is wonderful with a thin pastry covering very smooth filling. Moreover, because it's a mini size, you don't feel too "jer-luck" (sick of eating) eating the whole piece. |
Goodwood Park Hotel
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Generally, all the mooncakes from Goodwood Park have great lotus seed paste filling but not-so-great pastry which is dry and slightly thick. The 100th Anniversary Mooncake ( Lotus Seed Paste with Six Yolks) looks like a small cake with the picture of Goodwood Park Hotel lightly engraved on the top. We give a rating of 2-chopstick for all the lotus seed paste filling but no marks for the pastry. Hence, overall rating for the mooncakes with lotus seed paste is 1-chopstick. But don't bother to try those with durian paste. Though Goodwood Park is famous for its durian cakes and puffs, eating its mooncake with durian paste is like eating durian kueh (cake) from Malaysia.
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| Xin Cuisine | Not really popular for its mooncakes, we are surprised at the quality of some of its mooncakes. Touted as the bestseller from the restaurant, the Single Yolk Mini Egg Custard Mooncakegets a 1 ½ -chopstick rating. The egg custard filling is quite fragrant but the pastry is a little dry which tastes almost biscuit-like. The Double Yolk Lotus Seed Paste Golden Mooncake is also a favourite which gain a 2 ½ chopstick rating.
The Double Yolk Snow Skin Golden Mooncake gets the thumbs-up from the makanmatas for its smooth filling with a thin pastry of good texture. It has the best snow skin texture among all the snow skins we have tried with a slight aromatic taste of pandan leaves. So, if you like snow skin, this is a "die, die must try" 3-chopstick mooncake for this coming festival. |
| Crown Prince Hotel | According to sources from the food & beverage (F & B) industry, the famous flaky skin with yam paste mooncake from Crown Prince Hotel is a number one seller in Singapore. Its annual turnover for mooncakes in this one-month alone is huge enough to make everyone in the F&B industry go green with envy. That's why the Crown Prince Hotel's original flaky skin is celebrating its 10th successful year this year.
Despite the efforts of others to try and introduce their own versions of the flaky pastry, somehow Crown Prince manages to keep its top spot. Besides the usual Teochew-style Yam Paste and White Lotus Paste ( 2-chopstick rating each), a newPumpkin with Yam Paste is introduced this year to celebrate its 10th year. Biting into this mooncake is like eating Or Nee (famous Teochew dessert of yam paste) itself. The pumpkin and yam paste is moist enough for the dry and flaky pastry. It receives a 3-chopstick rating for its delightful taste.
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| Marriott Hotel |
It offers the traditional Lotus Seed Paste with Yolk and does it so well that most makanmatas give it 2-chopstick for its good combination of smooth paste and light pastry.
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| East Ocean Seafood Restaurant | We just have to try its mooncakes after many rave reviews last year. But sad to say, we have to tell you to :"FORGET IT!" The filling is so hard that all the mooncakes fail the test straightaway!
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Chinatown Tai Chong Kok Confectionery (Hue Kee)at Banda St
| The pastry is generally thin but dry to the taste. The Red Bean filling is so dry that it becomes powdery to the bite. The Green Bean Paste gets 1-chopstick as it provides a nice change for its salty filling. The usual mooncake with Lotus Seed Paste (with or without yolks) gets an acceptable 1-chopstick rating. The Assorted Nuts with Chinese Ham fares better (2-chopstick) as the filling has a good flavour and the nuts are so tightly packed together in the mooncake. |
| Leung San Hong Kong Pastry at Sago St |
Sells great Hong Kong dim sum delicacies but fail miserably in mooncakes. They are all dry and hard.
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Tai Thong Cake Shop at Mosque St
 | Another household name in traditional mooncakes and most of its selection taste better than Tai Chong Kok. The overall rating for its mooncakes is 1 ½ -chopstick. The best is the Mooncake with Lotus Seed Paste and Yolk (2 ½- chopstick). The pastry is not dry, in fact, it is a little moist and soft with smooth and slightly wet lotus seed paste. |
| Tong Heng at South Bridge Road | Its salty Mooncake with Green Bean Paste (2- chopstick) is better than the one from Tai Chong Kok as the texture of the paste is better and tastier. If you like Mooncake with Assorted Nuts and Chinese ham, then you "die, die must try" this one. It is absolutely shiok (satisfying) to the bite! Crunchy nuts with big pieces of Chinese ham give a great sweet and salty taste combination. Needless to say, it gets a 3-chopstick rating! |
Which one will you try?
After reading all these lengthy recommendations, have you made up your mind on what to buy for this coming Mooncake Festival? Or are you feeling more blur (confused) than before?
Happy Mooncake Festival! While you enjoy the delectable mooncake, pls take time to have a look at the beautiful painting below! ^o^
Have you ever been handed the truth leaflet by Falun Gong practitioner on the street as illustrated on the painting above? Do you know the Truth about Falun Gong? - http://thetruthaboutfalungong.blogspot.com
作者：中国大陆 淳淳 By Falun Gong Practitioner in China - Chunchun
The painting is an inspiration from the lyric ' In the freezing wind I hand you the truth [leaflet] ' written in Hong Yin Vol 3 'Pay Attention' .
作品简介：作品表现的是在寒风中，信仰真善忍的中国大陆法轮功学员在城市街头碰到一家三口，赶快掏出真相传单递给这一家人。这一家人从商场超市购物归来，喜气洋洋，又喜接真相。有感于“寒风中我向你递过真相”（《洪吟三》〈留意〉）的歌词，作了此画。
亲爱的朋友，你是否记得法轮功学员向你递过真相的情景？
Pls understand the truth about Falun Gong and the brutal persecution of Falun Gong in China. Pls do not believe the Chinese Communist Party's lies.
Falun Dafa is Good! And it is embraced in 114 nations!
请了解法轮功和中共残酷迫害法轮功的真相。法轮大法（法轮功）好，114个国家都热爱她，请不要被中共的谎言欺骗。
Pine Court at the Mandarin Singapore
