Mooncake madness

Twelve years ago I tried my first mooncake. It was a small red bean number baked in New York and purchased at Lucky’s Oriental Market in Miami. For my American readers, it was like a large, round Fig Newton. Then my girlfriend (now wife) sent me a box of four assorted mooncakes from Singapore, containing the usual golden/white/brown/green lotus paste with one or two dried egg yolks in the center. They tasted much nicer than the stale red bean hockey pucks.

For the next several years I looked forward to the mid-autumn festival and an ever-expanding array of mooncake offerings. Then I got tired of them, even though each year brings both new variations and the traditional warhorses.

This year brought a breath of fresh air. I was given a few mooncakes from the hotel at the new Marina Bay Sands that were the best I’ve had in years: chocolate flavored snowskins with a rich chocolate center instead of a yolk, with a hint of booze.

Some local bloggers have recently been denounced for demanding free meals from restaurants they review, bringing a large entourage, and otherwise being greedy gluttons. Let me state that I did not receive any special favors from MBS. However, if they wish to send a few chocolate snowskins my way I would not object. I would ordinarily be happy to go there myself, but with the disruptions from the F-1 race and lack of a free shuttle bus to the IR it would be most inconvenient.