Mooncake shopping

It's time to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival once more although, I have to admit, my way of celebrating it is basically to purchase and deliver mooncakes to my parents and in-laws with Hubby, and then munch on whatever we buy for them during our visits while the elders savour them too. :p

Well, this year's a little different. Instead of shopping with Hubby for mooncakes as usual every year, I went to Takashimaya B2, where the mooncake fair is usually held, with Charine, Portia and Wai Yee. We had to attend to some business in Orchard after leaving the workplace, so once the business was settled, we made our way to do our mooncake shopping. Charine left a short while after we got there, so the three of us were left to go about sampling bits and pieces of mooncake from stall to stall. My goodness, the variety's great this year!

It was fun doing the shopping with the girls. I think females generally have more patience in doing such shopping than guys. :p Anyway, I initially wanted to buy the golden pumpkin or yam flaky Teochew mooncake by Peony Jade Restaurant. Apparently, the chefs used to be the ones making such mooncakes at the ex Crown Prince Hotel, which were said to be among the best in Singapore. By the time we got there, however, these had already been all sold out! And that was only like 4 plus in the afternoon. Sigh. Never mind...at least I still managed to get some pretty yummy ones:

These precious black babies are introduced by Bakerzin...the skin's made of bamboo charcoal powder, which is said to make the mooncakes easier to digest. The filling comprises both lotus paste and black sesame paste -- the black sesame taste kinda overwhelms the more common lotus paste in a good way. Very 'fragrant'! Think fans of black sesame like Papa will surely love this. And guess what? In the middle of the filling is a white round chocolate truffle. Set against the rest of the mooncake which is black, this white choc symbolises a round shining moon in the peaceful dark night. Cool! ^_^ (Know what else is cool? The reusable bag that the mooncakes come in. Maybe I can 'kope' it from Mummy after giving them the mooncakes. Haha.

Then here're the other types of mooncake we'd be giving away. On top are what I bought after missing out on the flaky Teochew mooncakes by Peony Jade. These are the ones produced by Eater Palace. It's the first time I bought something from them. One pair's with the pure yam filling while the other one's a combination of yam and pumpkin, which tastes rather interesting. Also, they contain less sugar and are thus not too sweet and heavy. :)

Finally, the one in the black box is what we're going to pass to my PIL. I like them cos they're really meaningful. On them are imprinted the words: '感恩'， '知足'， '善解' and '包容' respectively. They're produced by a Buddhism-associated organisation, hence the simple but meaningful words that express desirable personal values. :)

And we all know how pretty mooncake packaging can be these days. Heh, see this? So lovely right? Portia bought two boxes of pure durian mooncake from Home's Favourite: Cookies n Durian. We tried those and I must say that they taste like real fleshy durian, and the snowskin seems to melt in your mouth with the durian! I was so tempted to get these too, but I guess it'll have to wait till next year.

Was tired but pretty satisfied after the day's events. Had a great time during shopping and enjoyed the conversations I had with the girls. Think teachers must get together like this and talk about stuff other than work more often! It's so liberating! Haha... like so deprived like that. :p