Mmm ... Malaysian mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival

The first time I ate a mooncake I was just out of college. I happened upon the dense sweet treat at a Chinese bakery. I opted for the mixed nut variety, since egg yolk didn't strike me as very appealing. More on that later. First, let's clear one thing up for those who've never heard of or eaten a mooncake: They are not made on the moon. These treats stamped with Chinese characters are eaten in China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival which took place this past Sunday.

I grabbed the assortment shown here yesterday; so don't let the fact that this harvest festival has ended stand between you and some tasty yuèb?ng, as they're known in Chinese. Most Chinese bakeries make mooncakes year-round.

In the center is a very traditional Chinese variety filled with red bean paste and the large guy off to the right is a mixed nut mooncake. The real find, though was the quartet of Golden Starlight brand Malaysian mooncakes. When I think of Malaysian cuisine, I usually forget about the Chinese influence, largely because my favorite dishes, like beef rendang, tend to be curry-based.
As I mentioned earlier, egg yolk mooncake doesn't exactly float my boat. The very few times I've had it in Chinese bakeries, the egg was crumbly and dry. I didn't let those bad experiences sway me from purchasing a box of Golden Starlight Mooncakes with Single Yolk though. At $19 a box, they cost the same as all the other large mooncakes. And how could something that looks so good taste bad?

The Malaysian mooncake, with its bright orange core of salted egg set amid a blob of green pandan shot through with melon seeds and other goodies, is the prettiest and tastiest mooncake I've ever had. Just for the heck of it I tried some of the yolk by itself and found it quite salty. When I chewed through all the layers at once it all came together in a savory-sweet symphony of flavors and textures: crunchy melon seeds, salty yolk and creamy sweet pandan that had been mixed with coconut milk. There's also some sea almond in there, an ingredient I've never encountered before.

The other two varieties paled in comparison both visually and tastewise compared to their Malaysian cousin. The red bean was good, but rather one-dimensional with its sweet filling. The mixed nut lived up to its name with plenty of sliced almonds, sesame seeds and bits of candied melon. That said it was far too sugary, almost like a Chinese fruitcake.

If you do happen to purchase some mooncakes, bear in mind that they are incredibly dense. I don't recommend eating more than a quarter at once lest you suffer from a mooncake stomachache.