In recent days if you happen to pass some restaurants, hotels, bakeries or food stores, you probably will notice that many people are queueing there for a box/bag of something. Some small bakeries are even closed because the space is completely occupied by those boxes and the people who are collecting the something.

Yes, the something is of course Moon Cake!

This year, the Mid Autumn Festival is on 3rd October (that’s why we have total 8 days for this year National Holiday. Usually it was 7 days.)Basically the Mid-autumn Festival is the time for families gathering.

Usually Chinese have special food for those traditional occasions, for example, Zong Zi for Dragon Boat Festival in May. And Moon Cake is the food dedicated to Mid-autumn Festival because its round shape represents the full moon in the mid-autumn.

Among all those special foods, Moon Cake might be the most commercial one. In addition to being a cake, it has become a business present for business partners, customers during this time. So every year, I receive lots of moon cake vouchers from various people: business partners, friends, my company, meanwhile I also give those vouchers to my customers, partners etc to maintain the good relationship.

So you see, we do need loads of moon cakes every year! No surprise if you see those piles of boxes in each store.

Moon cake is basically a cake with flour skin and stuffing inside. Normally traditional stuffing can be red bean paste, coconut paste, lotus seeds paste, nuts mixture etc.

And of course, we now have more choices such as ice cream moon cake.

Normally a moon cake just costs about 5-10RMB or 100 -150 for a box of 6-8 cakes.

As moon cake becomes a business gift in the business world, people then try to make it more expensive or decent as a business present! Some put shark fins or birds nest which are usually considered as expensive ingredients by Chinese. Some try to over pack the moon cake to make it more expensive and fancy. I remember a few years ago, some moon cakes in China were priced over 10,000RMB because there was not only cakes in the pretty box but also wines, crystal glasses etc. But now we see much less those overpriced moon cakes after the government asked the manufacturers to stop.

Anyway I am not a fan of moon cake and I always think they are too sweet and heavy. But it is a quite seasonal food which probably only largely available during this time.

Because it is a good business, restaurants, hotels, bakeries, food manufacturers all produce moon cakes for this special occasion. And I personally think the moon cakes by different producers don’t differ so much as long as the manufacturers are trust-able.

But the local brand Shanghainese love is called Xing Hua Lou, which might be the oldest Cantonese restaurant in Shanghai. If you walk by Xing Hua Lou in Fuzhou Road (Metro Line 2, East Nanjing Road Station, at the cross of Fuzhou Road and Shandong Road) these days, you will find loads of people there for moon cakes. Sometimes the police have to help manage the large crowd.

Chinese like the moon cake which has a salted egg yolk inside. But most foreigners absolutely feel disgusting about the egg whenever I told them. I still don’t know why…..

Tags: Chinese Food

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