Fast Food Watch: Are These the Worst Mooncakes Ever?

Nick Richards | Sep 18, 2013 5:00 pm | Add a comment | 3908 reads

Mooncakes are a traditional food served during Mid-Autumn Festival, and we may have found the worst ones ever. At, on average, 1,000 calories a pop, mooncakes are the heavyweights of the Chinese pastry realm, with rich fruity fillings and the likeness of a round brick.

Around the holiday, these things are consumed en masse. Traditionally，it was the effort that went into making the delicacy that made it so special to share, but nowadays, the cakes are produced on a macro level and everyone from 7-11 to Starbucks is selling them by the truckload. A few years ago, media mogul Hong Huang wrote in despair about the evil corporate transformation of the holiday treat in her essay I hate Mooncakes.

We took a quick walk around the block to see what was available at the bottom rung of the consumer ladder and came across three stores which adopt three distinct approaches in the mass-market proliferation of mooncakes.

Quanshi Full Time CVS convenience store sells mooncakes like chocolate bars, straight off the rack. They go for a generic approach with straight-up contemporary flavors like Chocolate (RMB 8.50) and Pumpkin Durian (RMB 8.90).

The Weiduomei bakery goes for a more traditional approach with flavors that might sound nostalgic to your grandmother: Cantonese Egg Yolk Red Bean Paste (RMB 8.50) or Cantonese Gold Leg Five Fragrances (RMB 10)

And Walmart is absurdly post-modern about the whole thing with a mountain of two-for-one Cantonese Coffee flavored Moon Cakes (RMB 6) overflowing out of a shopping cart at the store entrance.

Were we dumb enough to try them? Of course.

The Quanshi Chocolate had distinct brownie aroma, and there was something nutty about the whole thing. The texture was slightly grainy and revolting. On a positive note, it was real chocolate, not that waxy stuff.

The Quanshi Pumpkin Durian smelled like fruit punch. One bite and the obvious question surfaced to our minds, if you’re going to use the overwhelming stink of durian, what’s the point of the pumpkin? The aftertaste: still fruit punch.

The coolest part of a traditional mooncake is the egg yolk in the middle. Did Weiduomei pull it off in Egg Yolk Red Bean Paste? It smelled like an old peanut butter sandwich and oozed with oil when we cut into it. Oh my god, you can taste the sulfur, the flavor of death.

The Gold Leg Five Fragrance has a slight potpourri thing going on. Oooh a surprise, it’s stuffed with nuts and seeds. Initial reaction: bird food. Secondary reaction: dried apricot. Third reaction: paint thinner. Fourth reaction: Where’s the gold leg? We were hoping for honey-glazed ham or something.

Walmart’s Cantonese Coffee is way more Nestle Quik than coffee. All we could smell or taste was chocolate milk. Thanks for that Walmart.

Seriously, if you’re hoping to enjoy mooncakes this holiday, learning how to make them may be a good way to start, or peruse our dining events for some great feasting options when the moon becomes full this September 19.

Email: nickrichards@thebeijinger.com
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