Mid-autumn festival ~ time of the year whereby mooncakes are making their presence in the society. As I used to grow up in a kampong (yes, you're reading it correctly, i stayed in Lim Chu Kang area since birth till aged 6), mid autumn festival is one of the festivals I have fond memories of (beside CNY) .... lighting candles in the courtyard, hanging paper lanterns on the tree branches while I carry the battery-operated hello-kitty (with music) lantern and playing with my cousins.... eating mooncakes and pomelo, awww, those were the days :)
Anyway, started this year's mooncake "appreciation" with a sample packaging from Raffles Hotel
Baked (mini) mooncake with pine nuts, macadamia nuts and lotus paste. I love the crunchiness of the pine nuts though I am not a fan of traditional mooncakes. However, Raffles Hotel nv fails to impress me with their Snowskin mooncakes with Champagne Truffle & Ganache :)
All courtesy of Leecher :) At this point, you guys must be thinking he is sooooo sweet rite? No lo, he bought it for my mum, cuz my mum likes the mooncakes, wa ha ha .... ok, to give him credit, he bought a box of Raffles Cognac Truffle for me to try too (awww....so sweet :P *pukes*) I totally love the snowskin, ever so soft though it has been in the fridge for 2-3 days. Packaging-wise, not so impressive but my mum likes the purple box (given that its her fave colour)
Raffles Hotel even hopped onto the bandwagon (apart from Goodwork park hotel and many more) to introduce environmental-friendly bags for their mooncakes, not a bad idea @ all, walking advertisement all year round if people chose to use their bags.
I bought the fairmont snowskin selection for my mum to try out
Nice packaging, in the cheongsam series. They comes in 2 different colours - striking fuschia and turquoise boxes (for the youngsters), red and gold (for the older generation). The box even comes with a mirror, pretty pretty :)
8 mini snowskin mooncakes selection, the colours quite pretty rite?
4 flavours to choose from - strawberry & dark chocolate, Rum & Rasin, Champagne Truffle & Chocolate Ganache and Bailey's chocolate. Hmm... have to say that though the packaging looks impressive, but mooncake-wise, there's still room for improvement. The snowskin tends to harden in just 2 days. Champagne Truffe was not bad, but pales in comparison with that from Raffles Hotel. Bailey's and Rum & Raisin was a tad too strong for my liking. My vote will go to strawberry & dark chocolate, though it tastes quite sweet (perhaps due to the lotus paste).
Besides the snowskin mooncakes, I also placed orders for traditional baked mooncakes for Leecher's family and my corporate clients (thanks to FMQ for the corporate deals)
Red & Gold packaging for my corporate clients - decided that it will look more presentable :)
Mooncake from swissotel, shaped like a peach :)
Peach-shaped Single Yolk & Macadamia Nuts in White Lotus Paste
The only thing I like abt tradition mooncake - egg yolk! High in cholesterol, but heck ... :)
Another box of mooncakes that I got for Leecher's family: Kia Hiang snowskin selection.
Wooden packaging somehow stands out differently amongst the crowd of paper/aluminium packing. It sure weights a lot more though. My hands nearly went numb carrying 4 such boxes back to the office
9 mini snowskin mooncakes in 5 different flavours - durian (as per Leecher's request), green tea, blueberry & cheese, chocolate with macadamia nuts and rum, black & white sesame mousse. Apparently, they're quite famous for their durian mooncakes (though I didn't know of this brand till FMQ introduced it to me). Very generous with their fillings as well, it literally oozes out once you sliced the mooncakes :)
I got a box of Kia Hiang traditional low sugar mooncakes for my great-grandmother
3 different flavours - red lotus paste with yolk, orange lotus paste with walnut & yolk, rose lotus paste with macadamia & yolk.
The FENICS team got a box of mooncake to call our own, courtesy of Eric :)
Had to rack my brains to think of what mooncake to get from the booths @ Change Alley. Finally, settled on Peach Blosoms
4 flavours - Jap sweet potato, durian, black sesame and avocado. The black sesame rocks while Andrew prefers the avocado.
It's time for me to leech on others' mooncakes .... (just borrowed them to take pics, hahaa)
Bakerzin Mooncakes
Tower Club Mooncakes
Think I have had enough of mooncakes for this year, till next yr :)
1. The Dark Knight was pretty exciting with super effects, cool gadgets and impressive acting (the late Heath Ledger as Joker truely deserves the little golden man)
2. The Mummy 3 was kinda crappy. No actions (or the lack of good action) & lame acting. Tried too hard to be funny. All the time, my head was going dizzy from the less-than-impressive effects. I should count my lucky stars that this was FOC, for I would have banged my head against the wall for wasting money on such a crappy show.
3. Wall - E. This has officially become my fave movie of the year, never mind that we still have another 3 months to close off the year. I saw the trailer for Wall-E while waiting for the screening of The Mummy 3 and told Leecher that I must watch this movie. So, on the day of release, I dragged Leecher to watch this movie :)
As we had to exchange our complimentary passes for tickets, we couldn't go through any online booking. So, poor me had to keep monitoring the online booking system of GV to make sure that we wont make a wasted trip. I am not going to sit at the first 2 rows for this movie. Heng, we managed to get pretty good seats, haha
We only had 20 mins for our dinner though :( Polished off the tim-sum and rushed to the cinema for our movie. 97 mins, enjoyed every single minute of it.
This movie was supposedly to be educating us about the environmental issues, but I was more captivated by the love that Wall-E has for Eve :) Simple and sweet, I can't recall the number of times that I go "awwwwww" in the cinema whenever Wall-E did something for Eve, be it taking care of her while she was "in coma", chasing her across the universe when he thought that she was being "kidnapped" , protecting her and helping her to accomplish her "mission". To Wall-E, all he ever wanted was to hold Eve's hand, which he sees it as a sign of love. Sometimes, love is just so simple & sweet, pure & innocent ....
Love it when Wall-E goes "Eeeeeee.....vvvvvvvv.......aaaaaaaaa". Wall-E only knows how to say Eve & directive (which is mission in Robot's lingo)
Ya, I am in love with the both of them.
I wanna get a Wall-E & Eve toy, anyone knows where to get it?
While I am smitten with Wall-E, Leecher thinks Eve is more chio, cuz she looks classier. So now, we have got imaginary bf & gf for ourselves, LOL
