Want to know the difference between traditional mooncakes and non-traditional mooncakes? Then head on over to any branch of Vikings Luxury Buffet Restaurant in every weekend this September 2014. Mission is to determine which among their mooncake variants appeal to your taste buds most. Allow me in this post to take you through another foodie adventure, in the light of the Chinese Mid-autum Festival season. 中秋节快乐！
Short background about mooncake: The mooncake is the special food of Mid-autumn Festival. It’s on this day/season when people sacrifice mooncakes to the moon as an offering and eat them for celebration. Mooncakes come in various flavors. They are round, symbolizing unison and reunion of families and evoking longing for distant relatives and friends. Nowadays, people present mooncakes to wish a long and happy life.
Vikings SM Megamall Mooncake Festival Feature
Trying out the traditional and non-traditional mooncakes is an absolute must when you visit the Philippines’ largest buffet restaurant. Good lord, the mooncakes are delicious! My only warning is that they’re not the most nutritious and you might get hooked and let things get out of control. But whatever. I know you can handle it. 😛
We started our “afternoon tea meal” with tea and hot dishes. Vikings now includes additional four Twinings tea flavors, namely: Pure Green Tea, Jasmin Green Tea, Earl Grey and Japanese Sencha. Drinking tea is especially good stimulate the digestion and uplift the spirit, so drink up!
The tea was quickly followed with: the Minched Goat Cheese Mooncake with Mango Coulis and the Beef Bourguignon Mooncake with Choron Sauce. I liked that the sauces well complemented the taste of the mooncakes. The tempting mango coulis was composed with earthy spices together with ripe mango. The choron [show-RAWHN] sauce is a hollandaise or béarnaise sauce that has been tinted pink with tomato purée. The mooncakes were tender with a little chew. Eat them as quick as you can; a little heat takes them to great heights.
Next came the Asado Mooncake and Crusty Shrimp Cheese Mooncake, which were unbeatable. Gone are the days really when all we can associate with mooncake filling are mongo, red bean paste, lotus seed paste and egg yolk. I commend Vikings chefs’ innovation and creativity when coming up with different exciting flavors like these two. The asado mooncake was full of meaty chunks of asado, and the shrimp cheese mooncake tasted exactly like shrimp with cheese. Make sure you’re prepared for what’s to come. These almost didn’t taste like mooncakes. 😉
With creamy texture, the Salted Lotus Mooncake tasted the closest to traditional mooncakes. It was dense and sweet—similar to red bean paste, but not too beany. Its freshness made for an easy win! It’s interesting to learn that they were not made by a special mooncake molder but manually by hand. 😛
Finally, it’s time for some real talk. After trying all the mooncakes for the main course, we pleasantly were served with desserts which were also mooncakes! They’re pretty unique and addicting. The Choco Trifle Mooncake was my dream moooncake. It was impressively filled with real rich chocolate that wowed us all. This sweet filling is a rare sight and worth trying out.
Also hewing closer to dessert than an afternoon snack, the Wild Berry Cheese Mooncake was good although some of us commented that the outer layer had a hint of artificial flavoring. In any case, I loved them both.
If traditional mooncakes sound more favorable to you, know that Vikings also has them prepared for diners. The mellow and sweet lotus bean paste brought to mind peanut butter with less stickiness. These ones were wonderful, no less.
Wrap Up
Vikings Luxury Buffet do stand above the rest, offering in-season food offerings every time. They got the ideal mooncakes with a perfect harmony between outer casing and inner filling. Generally, the outer skin of the mooncake tasted familiar like that of the crackly shell of “hopia.” Each piece was phenomenal as I haven’t tasted anything like these mooncake variants before. These featured food of the month will no doubt get Vikings more customers coming. Eating them with chopsticks or spoon and fork was hard, so feel free to swallow these bite-size pieces with your hands instead and thank yourself afterwards. If you have any favorites, share in the comments. 🙂
Now you don’t have to go far to find stellar variants of mooncakes. They are available at Vikings every Saturday and Sunday this September! Don’t miss. 🙂 The menu varies depending on the branches of Vikings. Each branch offers different flavors according to the in-house chefs’ creativity and taste. Sadly, the mooncakes are not sold in boxes for take-out. The whole package could have been a great gift to family and friends for Mid-autum Festival.
For rates and other information, please refer to the Vikings website. You may also read my published review of Vikings SM Megamall here.
wacky group pic with bloggers and marketing manager Raquel
[schema type=”review” url=”http://www.vikings.ph/” name=”Vikings SM Megamall” description=”4th Floor, Mega Fashion Hall, Bldg. D, SM Megamall, Julio Vargas cor. EDSA, Mandaluyong, Philippines” rev_name=”For inquiries, contact 656-3888, 656-4888, 656-5888″ author=”Rochkirstin Santos” pubdate=”2014-09-09″ user_review=”5″ min_review=”0″ max_review=”5″ ]
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