It’s just 12 more days to the Mid-Autumn or Mooncake Festival and one of the prettiest mooncake boxes has to be that from the Concorde Hotel Kuala Lumpur. Six baked mini mooncakes (60g each) are packed in a shiny lacquer jewellery box which you are most likely to keep after the mooncakes are gone.
A lovely jewellery box to keep after the mooncakes are gone.
The gift boxes are in four colours: two in brilliant red, one in deep maroon and the last in black. I liked my choice of the black lacquer one painted with a rooster and a hen and peony blooms against a full moon.
My box had Set A flavours: Green Tea Lotus Paste, Assorted Fruits Nuts, Golden Pandan Pure Lotus Paste, Pure Lotus Single Yolk, Japanese Red Bean and White Pure Lotus.
In Set B the flavours are similar except there is no Assorted Fruits Nuts and there is a single yolk with the Golden Pandan Pure Lotus and the White Pure Lotus Paste.
The mini size of the mooncakes means I could taste more flavours and have small bite sizes whenever I feel like it. My favourite? It has to be the Assorted Fruits Nuts, bursting with walnut, almond, melon and sesame seeds, with fragrant hints of ‘chan pei” or mandarin peel. It’s lightly sweet, definitely a plus point.
I like the Red Bean one too, and the Pure Lotus Single Yolk. There’s “more” yolk in a small mooncake!
The box of six mooncakes is RM108 nett and is available at the mooncake counter in the hotel lobby or at South Court in Mid Valley Megamall. Call +603 2144 8750 or visit http://goo.gl/LCKnE8.
The hotel is also well-known for its Musang King Durian mooncake in snow skin, a large one at weighing 180g.
Mooncakes from Bee Cheng Hiang
The famous bak kwa or BBQ pork from Bee Cheng Hiang is in two of its mooncakes – the Signature Bakkwa Mooncake and the Mixed Nuts Jin Hua Ham.
The first offers bites of smoky sweet BBQ pork, with a tinge of salt. The second is sticky sweet with mixed nuts and thin strips of Jin Hua ham which is not unlike BBQ pork. I like both.
The Kirin biscuit from Bee Cheng Hiang
I do enjoy a well-made koong chai pang with black local coffee, and Bee Cheng Hiang has this biscuit in two animal shapes – the Kirin and the Arowana. Of course there are the piggy ones in red or white plastic “cages”. It’s a throwback to childhood, a taste of nostalgia.
Mooncakes from Chef Choi
One of the best mooncakes has to be from Chef Choi. The White Lotus Paste with Single Egg Yolk is superb. The rich salted egg yolk is a brilliant orange red against the smooth, glistening, lightly sweet lotus paste.
White Lotus Mooncake with Single Yolk from Chef Choi