Get Your Mooncakes At Compass One This Mid-Autumn Festival

Hi Huneybees,

It's time to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, enjoy those delectable mooncakes and tea under the moon with your friends and families as the little ones walk around the gardens with their cute lanterns.

Every year, hubby and I will go "shopping" for mooncakes, sample them before making our purchases for both our families. This year, we have somewhere new to check out - Compass One! 

They will be hosting its first-ever Mid-Autumn Celebration from 18 September to 4 October with the St. Regis Singapore and Fu Chong exclusively available here. Along, you can find multiple brands and unique International, Japanese and Halal Mooncakes too!

At the exclusive Yan Ting, St. Regis Singapore booth, you can try their new Reduced Sugar Green Apple Paste with Macadamia Nut Snow Skin Mooncake. I like that it is not overly sweet and has a subtle fruity taste, and the packaging? You can even use it for a special frame deco for this season.

Looking to send the mooncakes as gifts for family or business associate? Check out their Eight Treasures Assorted Snow Skin Mooncakes Premium Gift Set or the Four Traditional Baked Mooncakes Premium Gift Set.

Each set is perfectly accompanied by premium grade Pu-Erh tea along with an elegant teapot set, or a bottle of Champagne with a pair of limited edition Champagne flutes. Cheers!

At Heiraz Bakery’s, you can find halal mooncakes that even our Muslim friends can try. Their signature is the Durian Lempuk where the durian is baked for 6 hours, thus the lighter baked skin colour for the mooncakes.

Though made with halal recipe in mind, these mooncakes tast no different but better than the usual mooncakes that we have...

Fu Chong will also showcase its series of fruit snow skin mooncakes, which are made with fresh soursop, cempedak and mango. They are a little on the sweet side, but the rainbow colours makes them all so delightful to look at. The mooncakes boast pulps that provide a refreshing, crunchy bite. The mao shan wang rendition, with its creamy texture and robust flavour, will wow durian aficionados.

Next to Fu Chong, you can also find Kele. They have the usual baked mooncakes but what I find special is their snowskin mooncakes that come in special flavors like Mao San Wang Durian, Strawberry Cream Cheese, Mango Cream Cheese, etc. I highly recommend the Avocado Macadamia one, as it's a unique flavor and will make a special delight amongst the traditional mooncakes.

If you don't want too much carbo, something different from the norm will be the jelly mooncakes over at Kiwi. They have colourful agar agar mooncakes in fruity flavours or the local favourite durian flavour.

These mooncakes are made with no preservatives, so they have to be chilled. They do make nice desserts and more unique gifts for the new age mooncake lovers. This Tupperware shown above will be gifted when you purchase from them. They come in 4 colours and are whilst stocks last.

Something else that's more unique would be the mooncakes and Usagisan from Minamoto Kitchoan.

These Japanese confectionaries are all bite-sized and come prettily packaged that makes great gifts. They have unconventional flavours like Black Sesame. Green Tea with White Bean Paste, Earl Grey Tea, Yuzu, etc. They are not very sweet and makes very good pairing with tea.

At the bazaar, you can also get these adorable lanterns for your kids to play with, or get them engaged in a fun session of pomelo arts and crafts. Use different crafts to make edible masterpieces, flaunt their artistic flair and stand a chance to win $50 Compass One Vouchers!

Well, I made myself a unicorn pomelo, what you think? Will I win?

During this two-week event, Compass One will be collecting donations for its beneficiary, the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped. Also, if you are spending more than S$100, be sure to make a redemption for these adorable cushions and keychains!!!

Have fun shopping and have a great Mid-Autumn Festival with your friends and families! 😃

Don’t forget to stay tuned to my blog / like my blog’s Facebook page / follow me @huney_84 on Twitter & Instagram  for the latest updates!

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I LOVE DURIANS!!! - Durian Mobilisation 2014

Hi Huneybees,

Here I am revealing me weakest link - DURIANS! I can never resist anything with a durian topping and whenever it is durian season, you will be finding me hoarding basket-loads of durian home to enjoy with my family.

So naturally, you will find me at the Durian Mobilisation 2014 at Telok Ayer Green Community Centre! This year, hubby and I joined 350 people enjoying the "King of Fruits". Everyone sat together to share their stories of when they had durians, shared interesting stories and it was a lovely lead up to building friendships and bringing the nation closer together!

The event was co-organised by the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM) and prominent food blogger Dr Leslie Tay, of ieatishootipost.sg. Now into its seventh year, and fourteenth edition, the durian degustation was first started by Dr Tay in 2008 to help durian lovers gain a deeper appreciation for the different varieties. This annual gathering has since grown into an event where firm friendships are  initiated  as  durian  lovers come  together  to  taste,  learn and  share their stories and opinions about the fruit.

Beneficiaries from The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund were invited to join in at the event and enjoy the durian feast with the participants. Part of the proceeds will be donated to charity organisations Goducate, which is a non-profit that seeks to provide  a  better  life  for  needy  children by  empowering  them  with  education,  and Prison Fellowship Singapore, a charity  that  runs programmes  to help prisoners and ex-offenders, as well as their families.

There were 2 varieties of the durians to be eaten that night - the buttery Mao Shan Wang  猫山王 and the fleshy D24. Every durian was opened, checked for quality before being served to us, all thanks to Ah Seng Durian.

The Mao Shan Wang is named after Gua Musang town, the main fruit trading centre in Kelantan, Malaysia. The cultivar is originally from the town of Tanah Merah, also in Kelantan. The texture of thick Mao Shan Wang flesh is rich and creamy, sweet to the palette and it is easily identifiable by the characteristic brownish 5-arm "starfish" at the base of the Mao Shan Wang. The arms warp around the base of the durian and run up to the middle of the shell as if it is trying to hold it together tightly.

This young Jedi has leanrt the art of opening and sharing the durian...

Whilst the D24 durian on the other hand is has a stem shorter than a Mao Shan Wang, greener shell on the outside but the flesh is a paler yellow shade. The seeds are big and the light, fluffy texture that can be likened to low-fat margarine. It may taste a little bitter, but it also comes with a tinge of sweetness to balance things up.

Well, durians can make your body constitution heaty, so it was lovely that they even arranged for mangosteen for us to counteract the effect. Another way if you don't want to have sore throat the next day, simply drink water from the durian shells you can even add a dash of salt to go with it.

And a last tip for those who don't want the durian lingering "fragrance" on your fingers, you can simply use the durian seed as a soap and wash those fingers in the water filled shells as well. See, that's how useful and tasty the "King of Fruits' is!

If you have not tried durians before, all I can say is "WHY NOT?!" You have got to try it and I bet you will fall in love with them like me! So here's leaving you with more photographs from that evening...

For more information, please visit www.kindness.sg.
You can find Ah Seng Durian at BLK 20 Ghim Moh Market, #01-197, Singapore 270020.

Don’t forget to stay tuned to my blog / like my blog’s Facebook page / follow me @huney_84 on Twitter & Instagram  for the latest updates!

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