Mid-Autumn Festival is just around the corner, and different parts of Asia celebrate this time of reunion in their own unique ways. In Hong Kong and Macau, mooncakes are one of the essential festive delicacies to be enjoyed during the moon festival.
Over the years, mooncake offerings in these destinations have evolved to include both traditional and innovative flavours. The sizes and styles have changed, too, making them more attractive for gifting and personal enjoyment. Read on to find out more about the different mooncakes offered by various MICHELIN Guide hotels and restaurants.
Lung King Heen (Hong Kong)
Two MICHELIN StarsMICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau 2023
Located at the Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, Lung King Heen has consistently impressed with its traditional mooncakes. Its launch of new flavours offers its loyal customers fresh, new experiences.
This year, the restaurant has introduced the white lotus seed paste mooncakes with Wuyi rare orchid, hazelnuts, and salted egg yolk — a low-sugar creation crafted with premium hand-picked rare orchid tea leaves to offer a rich and mellow aroma that pairs well with the creamy white lotus seed paste (mooncakes pictured above).
The mooncake is further elevated with low-temperature roasted hazelnuts for a delightful texture. The restaurant’s chef, Chan Yan-tak, has thoughtfully crafted the white lotus seed paste with one-third less sugar than traditional mooncake recipes, striking the perfect balance of sweetness for this healthier option. What’s more, customers can still enjoy the popular white lotus seed paste mooncakes with black truffle and salted egg yolk, as well as the preserved eggs and pickled ginger mooncakes, both of which are fully handmade by the Lung King Heen team.
The Duddell’s mooncake box combines delectable mooncakes with lanterns.
Duddell’s (Hong Kong)
One MICHELIN StarMICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau 2023
Apart from enjoying mooncakes, hanging lanterns is another Mid-Autumn Festival tradition. MICHELIN-starred Duddell’s has collaborated with Macau designer Hong Chong-ip to design the Limited Edition LED Lantern Gift Box, combining delectable Mid-Autumn delicacies with exquisite design. The gift box features an auspicious and modern lantern in red and gold and eight pieces of lava cream custard mooncakes, so you can gaze at the moon while admiring the beautiful lantern as you indulge in delicious mooncakes.
Man Ho (Admiralty, Hong Kong)
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Man Ho’s executive Chinese chef, Jayson Tang, places great importance on family reunions during festive occasions. For this Mid-Autumn Festival, aside from a collection of mooncakes, the restaurant has also launched takeaway poon choi so customers can enjoy a scrumptious feast at home with family and friends.
The best-selling white lotus seed paste mooncakes with ginger and double egg yolks, as well as mini mooncakes with red dates and rose, are still part of this year’s mooncake collection, but new to the line-up are the mini mooncakes with dried tangerine peel and red bean.
With qi-boosting properties, dried tangerine peel can balance the sweetness of the red bean filling. The mooncakes have a rich and refreshingly sweet flavour and a lovely aroma that lingers on the palate.
Ming Court's mooncake boxes this year are designed by local illustrator Lingmuki
Ming Court (Mong Kok, Hong Kong)
One MICHELIN StarMICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau 2023
Ming Court, a MICHELIN-starred restaurant situated at the Cordis, is offering both traditional mooncakes and modern creations this year, collaborating with local illustrator Lingmuki to design a mooncake gift box that depicts the legends of Chang’e flying to the moon and the Jade Rabbit.
The Ming Court team has put together five mooncake offerings: the regular-sized white lotus seed paste mooncakes with double egg yolks and four mini mooncakes. New this year is the lava sesame mini mooncake, which comes in the Deluxe Mini Mooncake Assortment, together with the lava egg custard white lotus seed paste mooncake, and red bean paste with mandarin peel mooncake. All lava mooncakes have an exquisite and moist liquid centre that is delightful for all your senses.
The mooncake set launched by One Harbour Road features a trio of egg custard mooncakes.
One Harbour Road
MICHELIN-selected RestaurantMICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau 2023
Chef Chan Hon-cheong of One Harbour Road, located at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, is familiar with the Hong Kong palate and understands that locals enjoy savouring mooncakes as a post-dinner dessert.
This year, Chan has specially created a trio of egg custard mooncakes with different flavours for the One Harbour Road Collection Box. The new flavour of egg custard with yuzu and sea salt is crafted with pieces of yuzu to lend notes of refreshing citrus, and the sweetness and tartness of yuzu work together with the sea salt to give the egg custard a unique depth of flavour. The gift box also comes with egg custard mooncake with crystallised ginger and traditional egg custard mooncakes, perfect for fans of this mooncake flavour.
Two-MICHELIN-starred Wing Lei in Macau has collaborated with a local bakery for this year's mooncakes.
Wing Lei (Macau)
Two MICHELIN StarsMICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau 2023
Macau is home to many traditional pastry shops. Being a supporter of local culture and a green Macau, Wing Lei has partnered with Macau’s most iconic local bakery to launch stylish and eco-friendly mooncake gift sets.
In collaboration with October Fifth Bakery Macau, the Wing Lei Classic Mooncakes are filled with fragrant osmanthus oolong tea. A lot of thought has also been put into the packaging, where the mooncake boxes are printed on FSC-certified paper using soy ink, and the mooncake trays are made entirely of biodegradable materials. These all fit snugly in a simple, yet elegant and very versatile canvas tote bag lined with a layer of thermal insulation. A great gift option that takes environmental friendliness into consideration.
The article was written by 潘小熊 and translated by Iris Wong. Read original article here.
All images are from the hotels and restaurants mentioned in this article, respectively.
