My Very First Blog

In a few days time, the Mid-Autumn Festival or more popularly known as Mooncake Festival will be celebrated. Have you got your moon cakes and lanterns ready?

I did not buy many moon cakes this year as I felt they were too pricey and not worth my hard earned money. But I guess it's OK to spend money on worthless things once in a blue moon right?

I was actually over the moon when I received a few moon cake gifts this year. Definitely saved me from spending too much on them!

Anyway, today's post is not really about the Mooncake Festival, but since we are talking about the moon, I thought why not let me play you a song related to the moon?

I am sure you have heard of this song called "The Moon Represents My Heart". It's a Chinese classic made famous by the late singer Teresa Teng. If you have not heard of this song before, well watch this video.



This song had been sung to death by so many artists and non-artists alike it's now considered one of the most famous Chinese songs in the world. Guess what? Even our local superstar singer Siti Nurhaliza also did a cover version of this song!

Listen to her rendition below.



How do you like Siti's version?

I am not good at singing, so I will play this song on my piano instead. As usual, please excuse some slips and errors in my playing. I hope you will moon over it! Haha!



And by the way, have a Happy Mooncake Festival!

It was the 15th day of the 8th month two days ago, according to the Chinese calendar. That was the day when Chinese people all over the world celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival. In Malaysia, it is popularly known as Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival.

I had my very own 1Malaysia mooncake celebration. Why 1Malaysia? You'll know why in a minute.

Mooncake Festival is never complete without lanterns and mooncakes. I am too old to play lanterns but one is never too old for mooncakes. Haha!!

So let me start with mooncakes! Look at this beautiful mooncake box from Mandarin Oriental KL!



No, it did not come with the dragon, I swear. The dragon just happened to be there. Haha!

When I opened the box, it revealed 8 mini boxes inside!



So I excitedly took one box out!



I opened the box and took this out.



It was a mini durian snow skin mooncake! I quickly unwrapped it.



The mooncake was about 4cm in diameter - that's how mini it was!

I knew I could just chuck the whole mooncake into my mouth but I decided to cut it into half instead.



I took one small bite and I loved it! The durian paste simply melted in my mouth. Yum!!

Nowadays there are 4 types of mooncakes - the baked skin, snow skin, jelly and ice cream mooncakes. I dislike the baked skin variety. The jelly mooncakes are quite nice but one look at the colouring scares me! The ice cream mooncakes made famous by Haagen Dazs may appeal to some people but not me. I guess I still love the snow skin variety best!

So even though there were baked skin and jelly mooncakes that night, I did not bother to eat and take photos of them!

I did try the snow skin mooncakes from Tai Thong. Their durian coulis was really quite good with strong durian aroma!



Somehow, the photo of the durian mooncake below does not look too appetizing, but I swear it tasted really good!



However, the yam mooncake from Tai Thong was just so so.



Maybe because it had egg yolks inside! I hate mooncakes with egg yolks!!



Now don't get me wrong. I love eating egg yolks. But the combination of egg yolks and mooncakes are just....yucks!!!

By the way, these Tai Thong mooncakes were all normal size and not mini ones like the Mandarin Oriental mooncakes.

OK, enough about mooncakes! Mooncake festival is not just about mooncakes you know. There is also this slightly less popular food but it is my favourite food during Mooncake Festival. It is none other than the taro!



Some people call it yam. I prefer to call it taro-yam. Haha!

So how do you eat these taro-yams? Preparing it is easy! Just boil them in a pot filled with water and with some salt added, for about 30-45 minutes.

Then, you just need to peel off the outer hairy skin and they are ready for consumption!

Look at my peeled taro!



Oops! Focused on the wrong object - the unpeeled taro-yams!

OK, here is the correct photo.



I normally like to dip the taro into some soya sauce that was added with a dash of pepper. Yum!!

Earlier, I told you that I celebrated a 1Malaysia mooncake festival. Want to know why I said that?

Well, besides mooncakes and taro, I also ate some Raya cookies given by my Muslim friends!



I am not very fond of cookies but I ate quite a lot that night!



All these calorie-laden cookies were not doing me any good but it's OK, I promised myself I would work out the next day, and I did!



And guess what? To round it off, I even ate naan breads which I bought from a mamak shop that night! Haha!



Now was that a 1Malaysia celebration or what? LOL!

Did you celebrate Mooncake Festival too and what did you eat?