I get excited whenever the mooncake season approaches. Last year, I did not get to eat as many mooncakes as I would have liked since I did not want to pile on too much weight while pregnant. Hotels and bakeries have started selling mooncakes since July this year, so I popped downtown this week to get my hands on some mooncakes.
Pretty snow skin mooncakes from Hilton KL
Hilton KL have set up a mooncake booth in the hotel lobby, and have provided several baked mooncakes for sampling. There is a total of 11 mooncake varieties on offer and they are priced at RM18++ per piece, RM70++ for Prestige Box of 4 or RM88++ for Prestige Box of 6. Since I have never tried any mooncakes from Hilton KL before, I opted for the Prestige Box of 6 which includes a variety of 3 baked and 3 snowskin mooncakes. Presented in an exquisite box, I had a fun time photographing all the mooncakes especially the snow skin ones since they come in pretty pastel colours.
Mooncake booth in hotel lobby. You can purchase your mooncakes here or from Chynna restaurant.
Exquisite box
Gorgeous colors
Every year, Hilton KL will introduce a new mooncake. The Flower Drum Song is a famous 1950s novel which depicts the story of a wealthy Chinese refugee who resists modern culture but ultimately finds a balance between embracing the new while still celebrating tradition. Inspired by this story, Chef Chan Teck Woo of Chynna puts a modern take on the classic traditional mooncake and created Flower Drum, a snowskin mooncake with lotus paste and a soft custard egg yolk centre in a pretty purple shade. This was my favorite of the lot, since I love snow skin and I love salted egg yolk. What's different about the centre is that salted egg yolk has been blended with sweet custard creating a lovely creamy texture with a unique savoury/sweet flavour. The lotus paste was very smooth and not too sweet either. Gorgeous in every single way!
Flower Drum
Snow skin lotus paste with soft custard egg yolk
Coming a close second is Blue Moon, the 2008 creation of snow skin Amaretto lotus paste with blueberry cheese Feuillantine. This reminds me of the blueberry cheese tart that we are fond of. This was one of the more difficult ones to cut though without making a mess since the cheese tends to stick to the knife. This was also not too sweet and very smooth.
Snow skin Amaretto lotus paste with blueberry cheese Feuillantine
The Yellow Moon, the signature mooncake from 2010, is filled with violet flower essence and chocolate centre with brandy flavoured lotus paste. As soon as I picked this up, I smelt a wonderful fragrant aroma which also lingered on my fingers for a while after that. The chocolate centre was bittersweet and the brandy was quite evident.
Snow skin violet flower essence & chocolate center with brandy flavoured lotus paste
The baked varieties paled in comparison to the snow skin, though we found them all very pleasant. The Prestige Box of 6 comes with Baked lotus paste with single yolk, Baked white lotus paste and Baked red bean paste with almond flake. Unfortunately, they wrongly labelled one of the boxes and gave us the traditional-style baked with five nuts instead of the lotus paste with single yolk (which would have been our favorite baked one, I would think). Nevertheless, both white lotus paste and red bean paste were smooth and again, not too sweet and goes down well with a cuppa hot green tea. I'm not particularly a fan of five nuts, but I find the version here pretty good.
Tradtional baked variety
Green tea with mooncakes
Baked white lotus paste
Baked red bean paste with almond flake
Traditional-style baked with five nuts
Verdict: The best thing about the mooncakes from Chynna, Hilton KL was that they were not too sweet and were very smooth. I really enjoyed all the snow skin mooncakes, especially Flower Drum.
For full list of mooncakes from Chynna, Hilton KL, click here. Mooncakes are available until 12 September 2011.
Price: RM18++ per piece, RM70++ for Prestige Box of 4 or RM88++ for Prestige Box of 6.
Location: Chynna Restaurant, Hilton Kuala Lumpur, 3 Jalan Stesen Sentral, 50470 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tel: 03- 2264 2264
Website: http://life.hiltonkl.com/
*For full set of photos, please visit my Facebook page here.
*Note: Chynna, Hilton KL mooncakes are also available at the Mooncake Fair at MidValley Megamall KL.
Darn, I had promised myself not to eat ANY mooncakes at all this year, just because I ate too many in previous years, but that Flower Drum is very tempting. I love salted egg yolk, and I live custardy textures, and I love creative recipes! Wonder if some outlet will offer salted egg yolk ice cream someday :D
ReplyDeleteMy sister bought me mooncakes as well but not from hilton. Last year half of the hilton mooncakes i brought to melbourne were confiscated because of the cheese! :(
ReplyDeleteThis year, my sister brought over mooncakes from shang palace instead. :) hehe.
Nice photos, nice mooncakes. I have a feeling that you will be going on some more shopping trips for Mooncakes in the coming weeks !!
ReplyDeleteSean: Last year is last year... you can treat mooncakes as a tea-break snack :P
ReplyDeleteMichelle: Ah havent tried Shang's mooncakes... how are they?
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pictures, I like your favourite one too.
ReplyDeletelovely mooncakes.
ReplyDeletewow...the snow skin mooncakes looks pretty attractive. Esp. the flavors!!
ReplyDeletelike the pastel colour of the snow skin mooncake~~
ReplyDeletethe pastel colour is lovely! ahh, i love the box!
ReplyDeleteMargaret: Thanks, think we'll have to go back and get another before the end of mooncake season :)
ReplyDeleteSmall Kucing: Both pretty and lovely tasting :)
ReplyDeleteChoi Yen: Me too, I was attracted to it as soon as I saw it. :)
ReplyDeleteAi Wei: The presentation box is really pretty, so far I havent seen any other boxes nicer than this. Can use it to keep jewellery etc.
ReplyDelete