The majority of mooncakes here are from Taiwan. I was there before the Mid-Autumn Festival and bought all my mooncakes from I-Mei’s flagship shop in the middle of Taipei.
They’re mostly Taiwanese style mooncakes with flaky pastry shell but there are some of the classic mooncakes too, however all of them are made in Taiwan unless stated otherwise.
I had actually planned to get all the mooncakes from Taiwan. I thought it’ll be nice to give out mooncakes from Taiwan – it seemed like the ultimate souvenir, although I did buy other gifts too. It was a very busy trip and I couldn’t find time to get out, until my very last day, when Diana took me out at 10 am in the morning to a shop that sells mooncakes.
You can get mooncakes at 7-Eleven and the airport but for the former, you have to order in advance and the latter are commercialized stuff and I’ll rather go for a local producer and this place fit the bill perfectly!
The friendly people there even helped me pack everything and explained what each mooncake was (granted, I spent quite a lot) so that was good, considering I don’t read Chinese.
Pork Floss with Mung Bean Taiwanese Mooncakes (NTD 630)
This is really good! I would give this Best of 2015 due to its unusual savory-sweet mix. I love how the pork floss interacts with the sweet mung bean paste and I really enjoyed eating this gem. I had specifically gone looking for a savory mooncake after hearing about it from Diana (our Taiwanese liaison).
I was slightly taken aback when she asked me if I was looking for sweet or savory mooncakes. “Savory mooncakes? Whatever do you mean?” I asked. It turns out that pork floss mooncakes have been around for a while and the award winning combination with mung bean and the Taiwanese pastry skin is quite common here.
This box cost NTD 630 (about RM 85).
I-Mei Specialty Mooncake Selection 2015 with Premium Gift Box (NTD 750)
I got this one for my better half. It has a nice painting on the front of the box showing the exact street where I bought this mooncake from in the early days. I-Mei has been around since 1934 and they came out with a commemoration box where they commissioned someone to paint the street scene of their flagship store in Taipei where I went to.
This has a mixture of Taiwanese style mooncakes, Hong Kong style mooncakes and a selection of Taiwanese pastries (pineapple cake etc). It also has a wonderful Taiwanese mooncake flavor – dates and walnuts! It also appears in the previous box above (I think) as well as the one below (in the Hong Kong skin) and it’s a wonderful flavor!
I Mei Hong Kong Style Mooncakes (NTD 900)
This is the most expensive selection in their shop and I got in for my dear’s parents. It’s all Hong Kong style baked skin mooncakes but they’re all made in Taiwan. There’s a HUGE mooncake (200 grams) in the middle which has a pineapple filling as a tribute to its Taiwanese heritage but the others come in a variety of flavors including chocolate, walnut and Medjool dates.
I got to taste the pineapple filling and it was really good.
I thought the walnut and date filling is really awesome too (but no one else did). In fact, I’ll say the single yolk date filling Taiwanese mooncake is my second favorite this year.
I also choose a very interesting pack which had dried scallops and XO in a mooncake but for some reason it wasn’t packed and I wasn’t charged for it. I suspect this happened when we switched from a longer box to a flatter one and before it was tabulated and sealed so I didn’t realize it. Oh well.
Teochew Pure Green Bean Mooncake (RM 9.50)
This lard filled mooncake is from Setapak Teochew Restaurant. It’s been around since 1912 and they’re using their time-tested recipe. It’s a lot of lard (can smell it as soon as you open it) and decidedly (and proudly?) non-halal and there’s a certain charm to old school mooncakes like this, much like the Foochow mooncakes.
It’s quite good, although the lard smell/taste is a bit overwhelming and the filling is a little too sweet for today’s standards.
Haagen-Dazs Handcrafted Ice Cream Mooncakes (RM 95)
My better half got this for me. She knows I love mooncakes (especially unusual ones) and thus brought this home one day. It’s the Petite Collection which contains 5 hand-crafted ice cream mooncakes. Each set has:
- White Chocolate Mooncake with Mango Ice Cream
- Strawberry Chocolate Mooncake with Summer Berries & Cream Ice Cream
- Milk Chocolate Mooncake with Chocolate Ice Cream
The first one is the best and the “rarest” e.g. each mooncake configuration will have 1:2:2 ratio with the White Chocolate with Mango Ice Cream being the smallest number. Their Deluxe Collection also has the same kind of ice cream mooncakes, but with 2:3:3 respectively.
The Strawberry Chocolate Mooncake with Summer Berries & Cream Ice Cream is very refreshing too but my dear liked the Milk Chocolate Mooncake with Chocolate Ice Cream, which tasted like the Mother’s Day ice cream cake from Haagen-Dazs I got earlier this year. This is also the same mooncake we featured in TumblingMinis. 😀
Like I said, most of the mooncakes this year were purchased during my trip to Taiwan and are made in Taiwan. We both thought that the Taiwanese style pastry mooncakes were much better than their attempts to make a baked skin mooncake. I loved the pork floss with mung bean mooncake and the walnut and date mooncakes came in a close second.
Dropped by the Famous Bakery here over the weekend, remember the salted egg yolk puffs that your dad bought for you once? They had those but I was looking for the traditional mooncakes, traditional skin, lotus paste with or without salted egg yolk…but no more. Gee!!! Must have sold really well to be totally sold out! The puffs are available all year round now, so popular. They’ve done up the place, a little nicer now but I cannot tahan the tag line – “So rich, so famous!!!”, especially that rich part. LOL!!!
Yeah, they do Taiwanese style mooncakes too! 🙂
It’s quite good, but I think the Taiwanese do them better. I’ve even had the ones that’s from a Taiwanese owned bakery (Donutes) here and it doesn’t taste as good as the ones from Taiwan. I loved the pork floss and walnut + dates mooncakes.
On the other hand, Taiwanese baked skin (Hong Kong style) mooncakes aren’t that good, even compared to our local ones. That style of skin isn’t their forte, at least not the ones from I Mei – much preferred the Taiwanese style flaky pastry shell mooncakes.
Uiks…can bring in food with yolk? I thought i heard the imigresen will confiscate.
Scallop and XO in mooncake? That is sure special. Too bad they forgotten to add into the box. I think they are very creative. More creative than here. I guess, next year bakers who have read this blog post will try to make these mooncakes too.
Oh, I got a funny story! 🙂
I didn’t even know that until you told me and I read an article from a mooncake manufacturer on guidelines for mooncakes to each country and it says egg yolk and/or meat are not allowed into Malaysia. My mooncakes has BOTH egg yolk AND meat.
I was actually quite tired when I got home from Taipei coz it was late and I needed to catch another flight to Bali a few hours later. However, I got stopped at Customs when they saw my box with Chinese lettering and asked for it to go through the X-Ray machine.
I grumpily put it on and asked brusquely if it was just the box or whether I needed to put in my luggage as well without waiting for a reply and moved on. The box went through the X-Ray and before they said anything I went “OK? Okay!” and picked up the box and went on my way.
I didn’t even give the Customs people a chance to reply. HAHAHAHA
But I guessed my confidence worked coz they didn’t stop me. I honestly didn’t know we couldn’t bring it in until you told me, that explains the flabbergasted look they gave me.
I love all their creative packaging that make good boxes for our keepsakes.
pork floss with mung bean mooncake sounds like putting pork floss into Penang’s Tambun Biscuits. lard smell/taste being overwhelming will put me off the mooncake immediately. I like the HD Petite Collection the best – so dainty and petite. Must have cost a lot.
wow…you really tasted a lot of mooncakes, what a lucky fella! Got put on weight ? hahaha
I tried hunting for mooncakes 2 days after the festival ended, hoping for discounted mooncakes, but alas, concourse pun sudah tutup.. Hmm, I wonder where all the mooncakes gone.. Just 2 days after the festival wor, they still need to sell off those mooncakes right? I only had 3 types this year – lotus, pandan and red bean.. No fancy ones like cheesecake or chocolate or beetroot thingy.. I’m disappointing I could not taste any Shanghai and ice cream ones, but nevermind, no need to eat so much ma, *fattening* (sour grapes), haha..
It’s nice to see different kind of mooncakes for a change. I like this kind of mooncakes too.
Huai Bin is so awesome && c00l!
I didn’t take much mooncakes this year, b’coz of the expensive price and I felt it is so not-worth-the-price. Anyhow I managed to get some 20% discount on the few days before the mid-autumn day, and the taste was jst so-so only.