From the title of this blog entry, you most probably would be able to guess what I would be ranting about; and yes, its the grossly-overpriced mooncakes that are being sold in Singapore! After checking out a few mid-autumn festival fairs where mooncakes are being sold by top hotels and popular restaurants, I can only conclude this; that suppliers/vendors are overcharging their mooncakes! I know I would definitely be flamed/grilled by the various local merchants for putting up this blog entry but seriously, I really would like to share with you readers how you could get better quality mooncakes at just half the price and why you should avoid buying mooncakes that are grossly-overpriced.
The ingredients used to make mooncakes are really cheap and no matter how “premium” a mooncake may be, its not exactly as premium as it may seem. As a matter of fact, what people are really paying for is the branding/reputation of where the mooncakes are coming from and the extravagant packaging that complements the mooncakes. Yes, I do agree that mooncakes make perfect gifts for this special occasion but surly these packaging and branding do not cost that much.
In my own personal opinion, there are only 2 types of mooncakes even though others may argue that there are more; one that is the traditional kind, and the other that is the snowskin kind. Much of today’s traditional mooncakes are still rather traditional except that there may be certain variations such as the alteration/substitution/addition of certain ingredients that somehow give vendors/suppliers the “right” to tout their mooncakes as being a healthier choice/low in sugar content, and etc.
However, for the snowskin mooncakes, there are indeed lots of variations and they come in a myriad of fascinating and interesting colours. In fact, some of the snowskin mooncakes now have added ingredients such as liqueur and chocolate truffles! Not only that, the snowskin mooncakes come in a variety of designs and in one of the mid-autumn festival fairs that I visited, I chanced upon a box of snowskin mooncakes that come in the design of Angry Birds and they were selling it at SGD$80 a box for 4 pieces of mooncakes! And just in case you’re wondering, a box of traditional mooncakes from these popular restaurants or hotels are selling at a minimum price of SGD$50 and above!
While I do understand that mid-autumn festival is a once in a year affair, I do not see the reason why suppliers/vendors ought to commercialise this historical/traditional event just like Valentine’s Day! In fact, I really do believe that we ought to revisit the reason for celebrating mid-autumn festival and understand the origins of mooncakes.
Anyways, if you still have the urge to splurge on mooncakes, may I beseech you to make your money worth by purchasing high-quality and good-tasting mooncakes just across the causeway! During one of my usual weekend trips to Johor Bahru, Baby and I checked out the mid-autumn festival fairs there and we found that their mooncakes are reasonably priced. In addition, given the favourable exchange rate, I believe you will definitely get your money worth!
Anyhows, if I don’t practise what I preach, then I suppose nobody is going to be convinced that buying mooncakes across the causeway is cheaper right? So, Baby and I decided to purchase 3 boxes of mooncakes [1 for my mum, 1 for my aunt, and 1 for ourselves] across the causeway and we’re going to introduce them to you here on our blog!
For the 2 boxes of mooncakes which we gotten for my mum and aunt, we got them from The Bakers Cottage. In each box, there are 4 mooncakes, so in total, we ordered 8 mooncakes and they only cost us a total of RM 100.16 [after 20% discount] which is about SGD$40.39 for 2 boxes of 8 mooncakes! Not only that, it comes with a rather presentable packaging too! Having garnered feedbacks from my dad and mum about the quality of the mooncakes, both of them said that they were rather tasty and that the taste was just right for them. In fact, my mum liked it so much that she requested us to purchase a few more boxes for her when we visit Johor. Well, if you don’t want to travel all the way there, The Bakers Cottage has set up their booths here in Singapore [so far I have seen them in Junction 8 and Bugis Junction] and you might want to check them out and sample their mooncakes.
Here is the packaging for the box of mooncakes that we gotten from The Bakers Cottage
As for Baby and I, we ordered a rather special box of mooncakes for ourselves and these mooncakes are only available in Malaysia. If you have been checking our Facebook wall, you would have more or less heard of the Hello Kitty mooncakes and the Doraemon mooncakes; and yes, we ordered the Doraemon mooncakes to try and see for ourselves how the mooncakes fared in terms of taste.
We ordered the Tiramisu, Mango Tango, Nanyang XO Jing-Sa, and Chocolate Lotus Almond Biscuit Doraemon mooncakes and so far, we have tried the Tiramisu and Nanyang XO Jing-Sa mooncakes. If you were to ask us how we felt about the mooncakes, we would definitely give it two thumbs up! Not only do the mooncakes look cute, special, and unique; the mooncakes tasted fabulous too! You got to really try it for yourselves in order to believe what we say. In fact, Baby and I are planning to buy a few more boxes of the Doraemon and Hello Kitty mooncakes so that we can bring over to Taiwan, since we are going to spend mid-autumn festival there at CingJing Farm. In case you’re wondering how much our box of Doraemon mooncakes cost, it cost us only RM 67 which is about SGD$27.02 [3X cheaper than the Singapore Angry Birds mooncake].
As we ordered 4 pieces of Doraemon mooncakes, we were entitled to choose a bag that we fancied and so we chose this particular cooler-bag.
These were the 4 Doraemon mooncakes that we ordered.
Here’s the Tiramisu Doraemon mooncake that we tried. We found the mooncake to be rather flavourful as it has quite a strong hint of coffee flavour when we bite into it. It wasn’t too sweet and the taste was perfect.
How the inside of the Tiramisu Doraemon mooncake looks like.
This is the Nanyang XO Jing-Sa Doraemon mooncake that we tried. We found the mooncake to be extremely tasty because the chicken floss really complemented the fried bean paste rather perfectly and it has a balanced taste of sweet and salty.
This is how the inside looks like.
So, having shared my opinions and thoughts about overpriced mooncakes in Singapore, what are your own personal opinions and thoughts? Well, I certainly hope that this post would have kinda enlightened you and hence, you would have found out how to make your money worth especially if you have to splurge on mooncakes. Have a blessed mid-autumn festival in advance!
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God bless!
