liuzhou

Today, Sunday is your last chance to get your mooncake shopping done till next year. Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn festival. The street and roads around the 5-star hotel are rammed with cars and last minute shoppers trying to get the city’s most prized mooncakes. These are traditional, regular Cantonese mooncakes but of ‘elevated’ quality. And elevated price. If I may be allowed a slight Sunday Aside. A special friend’s lovely young daughter is a budding equestrian and chose not to go travelling during this 8-day public holiday, but to stay home to look after her horse friends. Then, in anticipation of Mid-Autumn Festival (Mooncake day), October 6th this year, decided it would be a good idea to make mooncakes for her best friends. The horses! With a little help from her 妈妈 (mā ma), she did just that. Filled with horse friendly ingredients. Image pixelated at her mother’s request for privacy. The horses are unpixelated; they gave permission..

Obviously, I meant "hadn't" realised.

Marketing. So far as I can make out they are claiming it's specially formulated to enhance crab. It contains no crab and is just regular rice vinegar.

Another day; another lunch 大闸蟹 (dà zhá xiè), mitten crabs aka hairy crabs. With 蟹醋 (xiè cù), crab vinegar for a dip (in the bottle).

They're at it again! This a screenshot of a dish sold as western food. The video is going viral here in China. Overcooked but unseared steak, some kind of spaghetti, random salad, a fried egg and a lump of cØrn. As served in every western home every day! Thankfully, the restaurant is over 1,000 miles from me.

You may have noticed that a number of the mooncakes I’ve mentioned are described as 冰皮 (bīng pí) something. This means ice skin. They are not baked like normal cakes but are fresh and are sold and stored frozen. They are not ice cream like, but are defrosted and then immediately eaten. These have been around a couple of years but have really exploded this year with lots of ‘new’ flavours turning up. These two are from the grasslands of China’s northern province, Inner Mongolia. First up is 醇厚奶香地道蒙味 (chún hòu nǎi xiāng dì dào méng wèi), full milk flavour authentic taste. Hmmmm. Next is 咖啡混合味月饼 (kā fēi hùn hé wèi yuè bǐng), coffee blend flavour mooncakes. Blended with what?

Yesterday. Crayfish in a Sichuan style mala sauce. Vinegar fried potato slivers and stir fried cabbage. Served with rice.

Good to see you back!

I was sitting yesterday thinking about some of the stranger fillings found in mooncakes when an idea struck me “I bet someone’s tried it” I said to no one in particular, so I had a look and sure enough some clot has. 冰皮半熟芝士月饼 (bīng pí bàn shú zhī shì yuè bǐng), Ice skin half-cooked cheese mooncake! Half cooked? More like half-baked idea! For a country supposedly running with end to end lactose intolerant citizens, they sure like to mess around with what they imaging to be cheese. In fact, it’s usually local renditions of the revolting additive-ridden slurry that is supposedly American “Cheese”. Bah humbug! Sorry, bout the crappy image from their advertising, but I ain’t going to buy one to do a better job. Note: So far they haven’t got round to making mooncakes from the dreaded evil yellow peril, but give ‘em time.

I think I'm turning Japanese. White Crane Dai Ginjo. 大吟醸 (dai ginjo) is sort of the equivalent of premier cru in French wines;; in other words a cut above every day drinking.

@Shelby You live in a very different world than mine and one I'll never see directly but I always love your hunting and other posts.

Me neither.

That scrambled egg looks well overcooked.

Continuing the chocolate theme, we have 巧克力脆皮榴莲冰皮月饼 (qiǎo kè lì cuì pí liú lián bīng pí yuè bǐng), chocolate crispy durian snowy mooncake. It is basically the same durian cake I mentioned before but coated in chocolate with nuts. I’ll pass. Chinese chocolate is not generally good, at all.

As China starts its 8 day public holiday, the locals are engaging in their favourite holiday activity – shopping. So the stores are going all out to promote their mooncakes before next Monday, the Mid-autumn festival. Among the offerings are a follow up to my last post. Inevitable, I suppose. Following the Hong Kong style “custard lava mooncakes”, it was only a matter of time until someone came up with a chocolate lava mooncake. 橙香巧克力冰皮月饼 (chéng xiāng qiǎo kè lì bīng pí yuè bǐng), orange scented chocolate iced mooncake.