I would like to make some savoury mooncakes as it is soon moon festival (24 Sept). I ate one once long time ago in Hong Kong, given to me by friends. It was good but difficult to find (vs the sweet ones), so my memory is vague. I remember the flaky pastry and the pork. Anybody know more about this?
Did not know these existed. I’m very old school when it comes to moon cake. I finally tried the mochi-skin ones recently and didn’t care for them either. My local stores are also selling the lava custard ones now, but at USD 80/box for the MX brand. 
Not sure I’ll be trying those any time soon.
How did you find the taste? I suppose for those who don’t like the very dense lotus seed or bean paste filling, the savory filling may feel more familiar? Was this like eating a dumpling but with pastry skin? Is it like a cornish pasty?
Yes, I have tasted them, but definitely not made them. A little more Shanghai influence if I remember. Have fun.
Where did you taste them?
Hong Kong and USA. I have eaten them at home, but you can also order them at restaurants. Many Shanghai restaurants sell savory mooncakes. For example, Philadelphia Dim Sum Garden (focus for soup dumplings) has savory mooncake all year long.
“I associate mooncakes with the Chinese New Year as well as with my list of things I don’t enjoy eating. Mooncakes are typically filled with redbean paste and are best used as paperweights. However, I felt differently after seeing a pork and beef mooncake special on the menu. The flaky shell held a flavorful mixture of meat. This is a mooncake I would actually eat…”
Personally, I disagree with the author. I just bought another $100 cantonese mooncakes just for myself. Yes, all for me.
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Sweet red bean or lotus moon cake is more original, I have to say, but they are too sweet for me, 1/4 of a cake is enough. I like certain flavours of mocha ones, I believe it was inspired by the Japanese mocha ice-cream dessert.
It reminded me of the egg yolk custard bun, but in mooncake!?
I will make it because it is hard to find in here, and not too keen to eat the very dense red bean cakes. Yeah, it is like some type of “dim sum”, pork with a flaky pastry, a bit similar to baked cha siu puff.
Which is your favourite flavour? I love the yolk ones!
$100 for a box for 4? Expansive…
For my flavor, I think I am split between the “egg yolk with lotus seed” vs “egg yolk with nut mix”. This time I bought 1) Two egg yolks with white lotus seed, 2) egg yolk with nut mix, 3) egg yolk with nut mix with ham and 4) egg yolk with chestnut…
After you asked me I looked into my purchase… I think I accidentally bought 2) and 3). They overlap…
I bought 8. Each is about $12-14. I should said that I also bought another box of Kee Wah, and Kee Wah is even more expensive, about $15-17 each. So I spend $150 already. All on myself for mooncakes. 
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No red bean? LOL
8 mooncakes, I will need several months to finish that!
Good that you can find Kee Wah there, they should be good. Here I can only find the local Chinese stuff, tried once, not too hot about the quality.
Oh I see. We have several local Kee Wah stores. Not just the mooncakes in boxes in supermarkets. Egg tarts, pineapple buns…etc.
https://www.keewah.us/english/locations
“local Chinese stuff” Local mooncakes made by locals? They can be very good. The ones I just spent on $100 are from a local bakery here in SF. I would say they are not any worse than Kee Wah or Wing Wah – possibly better.
Nah, the standard is not like the Chinese in US or UK. I will go to China town in the 13th district to have a look this week, recently there is a bakery more serious doing some Hong Kong egg tart and more fancy stuff.
Just found a photo of the place, 5.5€ - 7.5€ for a cake.
More on fresh pork mooncake, anybody going to Shanghai this period can have a try.
http://english.gov.cn/news/2014/10/06/content_281474992816939.htm
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Moon cake is typical served during the mid autumn harvest festival when there is a full moon supposed to be the largest for the year. It is usually during early October of the Gregorian calendar.
For Chinese from Fujian, e celebrate it with a game of dice, using mooncake . Sometimes, aside form mooncake, we give the winner of the biggest mooncake money that everyone chip in .
m favorite re the ones with egg yolk.
There are overpriced.
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Oooh the website shows they sell a mini mooncake! Those would be perfect for me, as the larger ones are so rich. The nyc chinatown bakeries seem to have only large size ones, i love the lotus seed filling version!
Year round i can find something very similar to mooncake but is shaped in a roll, cut on diagonal as slices with similar pastry on outside. Not beautiful but delicious and maybe $2 or so
I don’t know. I still like the large one (regular size, not the real giant size) better. I don’t have to eat the entire one in one sitting. The smaller mooncake in my experience has such a high “skin” to “filling” ratio that I feel the skin is too thick. 
Anyway, NY Manhattan has so many Chinese bakeries compared to most areas. There are at least 15 bakery different bakeries which make mooncakes each year. They are mostly around $6-9, cheaper than most of LA and SF areas.
I have seen some of them make the mini ones. Mini as in… about 4-5 of the mini equal to a regular in size.
Oh, hmm, you make a very good point about the pasty to innards on the mini size.
Will mooncakes freeze ok? I am thinking to pick up a couple, but have only purchased one at a time before which i always eat before longer term keeping is a concern.
I have had good luck for refrigerate them for 6 months or longer. Now, some mooncakes need to be frozen, but those are the “ice skin” mooncake or mooncake with very delicate filling.
For traditional mooncake, I feel refrigeration should be sufficient. (of course, they should be air tight, so they don’t dry out in refrigerator or freezer).
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Good that you can find Kee Wah there, they should be good. Here I can only find the local Chinese stuff, tried once, not too hot about the quality.
Do you find a big difference between the Kee Wah and the Maxim/Mei Sum/MX? I was shocked to see the price difference in the two brands. I think MX has been the top selling brand for years, but I guess I don’t personally notice a lot of difference.
I also dislike the traditional thick lotus seed / red bean paste. Waaaay too dense and sweet. I like the newer versions where they have a flakier crust and a much better egg yolk to paste ratio. I was pleasantly surprised by a green tea one recently that came in a box of various flavors (taro, green tea and regular lotus seed paste). It wasn’t the matcha type of green tea, but just a regular green tea. It gave the paste a delicate tea aroma that was subtle and quite nice.
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I know these 2 brands are from Hong Kong. I haven’t taste Maxim traditional mooncake recently, only the ice skin ones when I was there, so I don’t know their quality compared to Kee Wah. I live in Paris now, those HK companies have not much interest coming to Europe except maybe to UK.
I did remember many years ago, there were only one egg yolk in the cake, it was like a treasure hunt in the traditional mooncake when cut in 4, who would get the yolk, but since everybody fighted for the yolk, then the bakery got to another extreme of putting put 4 egg yolks and the paste around practically disappeared.
I would like to try the newer lighter ones, maybe next year, if I happened to travel in Asia around August or September.
Do you have Wing Wah in US?
Yes we have Wing Wah in the stores in Boston too. I haven’t had a mooncake from Wing Wah in years though.
