Dining Out: Mid-Autumn Festival Dinner at NKS Banquet Hall

Tonight's Mid-Autumn Festival dinner with my mom and her bestie at NKS Banquet Hall:

Deep-fried stuffed tofu with broccoli

Poached white cut chicken with ginger scallion oil

Deep-fried oysters with gai lan

Stir-fried beef tenderloin with cashews and choy sum

My mom and her best friend are regulars here for lunch (they come here 4 to 5 times a week for dim sum) and every single server and manager knows them, so the service was impeccable — super attentive, super friendly, super efficient, and super accommodating. While I know their dim sum is consistently good, this was my first time there for dinner so we decided to forego the holiday set menus (which included some dishes that we didn't unanimously like) and ordered à la carte. And I gotta say, every single dish we had tonight was truly incredible. The stuffed tofu were pillowy on the inside and crisp on the outside, the chicken was soft and juicy (even the white meat!), the oysters were gigantic and plush, and the beef cubes were ultra tender with perfectly crunchy cashews. (My mom's favourite server even treated us to some freshly steamed longevity peach buns for dessert!) Not sure why we'd never come here for Chinese holidays or special occasions before, but that will absolutely change. Tonight's dinner was a truly delicious experience.

I hope everyone had an amazing and equally tasty Mid-Autumn Festival!

NKS Banquet Hall

New Kennedy Square

8360 Kennedy Rd., Unit B06

Markham, ON L3R 9W5

(905) 948-8668

Take Out: Snow Skin Mooncake Set 2024 from Daan Go Cake Lab

For Mid-Autumn Festival this year, I decided to go to Daan Go Cake Lab for their Snow Skin Mooncakes again because, frankly, they are tastier, prettier, and more unique than those plebe lotus seed paste mooncakes. (I had said last year that I hoped these would be released again this year, so I'm glad they were popular enough for a comeback!)

Snow Skin Mooncake Set Box — Artwork by Kimiko Nogomi

Snow Skin Mooncake Set Box

Snow Skin Mooncake Set

Snow Skin Mooncake Set

This year, we have two returning flavours and two new ones:

• Pistachio Raspberry (new): Pistachio pastry cream with a raspberry gel centre and raspberry pistachio croquantine
• Salted Duck Egg: Salted duck egg pastry cream with a salted duck egg lava centre and white chocolate coconut crisp
• Passion Fruit Cheesecake (new): Cheesecake filling with a passion fruit gel centre and white chocolate graham crumble
• Jamocha Nut: Chocolate pastry filling with an almond lava centre and milk chocolate almond crumble (a.k.a. the GOAT of mooncakes)

Snow Skin Mooncake — Pistachio Raspberry

Snow Skin Mooncake — Pistachio Raspberry (Inside)

Snow Skin Mooncake — Salted Duck Egg

Snow Skin Mooncake — Salted Duck Egg (Inside)

Snow Skin Mooncake — Passion Fruit Cheesecake

Snow Skin Mooncake — Passion Fruit Cheesecake (Inside)

Snow Skin Mooncake — Jamocha Nut

Snow Skin Mooncake — Jamocha Nut (Inside)

Regardless of where your mooncakes are from, I hope everyone has a delightfully food-filled Mid-Autumn Festival!

Daan Go Cake Lab

Times Square Richmond Hill

550 Highway 7, Building C, Unit 70

Richmond Hill, ON L4B 3Z4

(905) 707-9098

Dining Out: Mid-Autumn Festival Dinner at Kingsfield Chinese Cuisine

A belated Mid-Autumn Festival dinner with the fam at Kingsfield this evening:

Stir-fried lobster with salted egg yolk
Steamed green bass with ginger and scallions 
Beef and broccoli with cashews
Stir-fried assorted mushrooms with bok choy
Crispy free range chicken with shrimp chips

You know, I don't love salted egg yolk in mooncakes, but it is FREAKING DELICIOUS when fried with lobster. We usually opt for the usual garlic and green onion lobster at Chinese restaurants but we wanted to try something different this time, and MY GOD, I HAVE BEEN MISSING OUT. So I obviously need to make up for all those years I didn't have this in my life...

Kingsfield Chinese Cuisine

2910 Major Mackenzie Dr. E.

Markham, ON L6C 0G6

(905) 887-1988

Dining Out: Mid-Autumn Festival Dinner at Xiang Zi Hot Pot

Nothing quite like celebrating today by eating my weight's worth of hot pot at Xiang Zi:

Pot of 3 broths: Mushroom and pork bone, hog maw and chicken, and tomato
King oyster mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, winter melon, and lotus root
Beef slices
Watercress, romaine, shrimp, and mussels
Abalone, tender beef, and lamb slices
Lamb skewers
Fresh fruit platter

This was literally only a third of what we ordered because I eventually decided that eating was more important than taking photos. What you don't see here: Cucumber salad, stem lettuce salad, marinated duck tongue, fried tofu, fried gluten balls, fried fish paste, pork intestines, honeycomb tripe, pork belly slices, quail eggs, luncheon meat, squid, scallops, long li fish... My food baby is unreal right now. (Definitely 3rd trimester, good thing I wore my ultra-stretch jeggings.) It was my mom's first time here, and she was so impressed with everything — the variety, the cleanliness, the service, the decor — that she's already planning to have our Winter Solstice dinner here. But the cherry on top? When we got the bill, we found out they're offering a 20% discount this week! Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, indeed.

Xiang Zi Hot Pot

Uptown Market Shopping Centre

3989 Highway 7

Markham, ON L3R 5M6

(905) 305-9888

Take Out: Snow Skin Mooncake Set 2023 from Daan Go Cake Lab

I'm just gonna go ahead and say it: Lotus seed paste is boring. All the mooncakes my parents ever bought or received when I was a kid had the traditional lotus seed paste and salted egg yolk filling so I grew up totally indifferent to mooncakes. However, mooncakes now come in all sorts of different flavours and fillings that are way more exciting. So for this Mid-Autumn Festival this year, I decided to try out the new Snow Skin Mooncakes from Daan Go Cake Lab, which are gorgeous mochi-wrapped works of art:

Snow Skin Mooncake Set Box — Artwork by Wenting Li
Snow Skin Mooncake Set Box
Snow Skin Mooncake Set(Clockwise from top left: Coconut Salted Egg Yolk, Premium D24 Durian, Matcha Yuzu Pistachio, and Jamocha Nut)
They come frozen and are meant to be defrosted for an hour before eating, but I like to defrost for 30 minutes instead so that they have a firmer texture — like mochi ice cream, but a bit softer and with a fun crunchy middle. After much deliberation, I chose the set with durian (they have a set without it as well) — I got it in hopes that it would change my mind about the fruit, which is really reminiscent of a buttery fart. (To be fair, the last time I actually ate durian fruit was 23 years ago on a family trip to Thailand, so my memory of it might be a little skewed. But it was unpleasant enough that I have not felt the need to eat it again.)

Snow Skin Mooncake — Coconut Salted Egg Yolk
Snow Skin Mooncake — Coconut Salted Egg Yolk(Yolk lava filling, salted egg yolk, milk crunchy)
Snow Skin Mooncake — Premium D24 Durian
Snow Skin Mooncake — Premium D24 Durian(D24 premium durian, durian filling, caramel crunchy)
Snow Skin Mooncake — Matcha Yuzu Pistachio
Snow Skin Mooncake — Matcha Yuzu Pistachio(Yuzu jelly, matcha pastry cream, pistachio croquant)
Snow Skin Mooncake — Jamocha Nut
Snow Skin Mooncake — Jamocha Nut(Almond gianduja, jamocha filling, almond crunchy)

Sadly, my mind has not changed about durian, however, I will say that it is significantly better in this mooncake form than the fruit itself. (Anyone that plays The Sims 4 will know there is a fruit you can grow called the trash fruit. I imagine that it tastes like durian.) The other three flavours are delightfully interesting and tasty, especially the Jamocha Nut, a crowd-pleasing flavour that would be delicious in any form of dessert. Daan Go Cake Lab did an excellent job at combining unique but cohesive flavours and textures for these mooncakes, so I really hope they release these again next year. (Note to self: Leave out the durian. You're just not meant to like it.)

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Daan Go Cake Lab

Times Square Richmond Hill

550 Highway 7, Building C, Unit 70

Richmond Hill, ON L4B 3Z4

(905) 707-9098

Dining Out: Mid-Autumn Festival Dinner at Chef 88 Elite

My mom and I went to Chef 88 Elite for our Mid-Autumn Festival dinner tonight:

Peking duck
Peking duck meat lettuce wraps
Diced beef and veggies with Maggi sauce and cashews
Braised bean curd with shiitake mushrooms and broccoli
They were overbooked and understaffed. I suppose this was to be expected — Mid-Autumn Festival is as big an occasion as Lunar New Year to Chinese people, and Chef 88 Elite is one of the most popular Chinese restaurants in Markham. Despite having a reservation, though, we still had to wait 15 minutes just for the host to return to the front, and then we couldn't even get a table inside the restaurant because they ran out of chairs. Like many others who had a 7:00 reservation, they sat us at a table outside on the patio. But it ended up being a blessing in disguise because the weather was actually really nice and it wasn't nearly as crowded. Most importantly, we had a marvelously delicious meal (I'm happy to report that their dinner menu is just as excellent as their dim sum) with enough leftovers for dinner tomorrow. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Chef 88 Elite Fine Dining 百樂軒海鮮酒家

Denison Centre

1661 Denison Street, Unit T1

Markham, ON L3R 6E4

(905) 604-8218

Photolog 2020: Day 275 of 366

Bake Code Mooncake Box Set

Bake Code Mooncake Box Set

Bake Code Mooncakes

Bake Code Mooncakes in Shredded Coconut Mung Bean Paste with Cranberry Nougat and Yuzu Passion Fruit Mung Bean Paste with Mochi

Bake Code Mooncakes in Shredded Coconut Mung Bean Paste with Cranberry Nougat and Yuzu Passion Fruit Mung Bean Paste with Mochi

Bake Code Mooncake in Shredded Coconut Mung Bean Paste with Cranberry Nougat

Bake Code Mooncake in Yuzu Passion Fruit Mung Bean Paste with Mochi

Bake Code is offering their limited edition mooncakes again this year (which is widely available at all Chatime locations!), so I decided to get myself a little box of two, perfect for the two new flavours they released this year: Shredded Coconut Mung Bean Paste with Cranberry Nougat and Yuzu Passion Fruit Mung Bean Paste with Mochi. Call it blasphemy, but I just don't like the salted egg yolk that normally comes in mooncakes, so I love that Bake Code came out with some untraditional flavours and fillings this year. But whether or not you eat mooncake, I hope everyone has a happy and healthy Mid-Autumn Festival (or Chuseok or Tsukimi or whatever else this holiday is called in your country)! 🍁🌕🥮

(Update, 3:53PM: I've tried a quarter of each one so far, and quite frankly, they're the tastiest mooncakes I've ever had in my life. In fact, they don't even taste or have the texture of traditional mooncakes. It's probably because they're not made with lotus paste, but it's somewhere between a pound cake and a cheesecake. And both flavours are incredible. Highly recommend, even for those who don't celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival!)