Mooncakes really do exist

Erbie and I went down to Chinatown on Sunday to eat mooncakes and look at the lanterns strung up for the Mid Autumn festival to celebrate the harvest moon which fell on October 3rd this year.

Chinatown, Soho, London :  4th October 2009

This is a mooncake.

Moon cakes are made from lotus seed paste in pastry, sounds bad, actually very nice. I sliced mine up into quarters as they are very rich. Some have a salty egg yolk in the middle to represent the moon. Thankfully not the one I got. It went down rather well with a hot strong espresso. Erbie wasn’t impressed and stuck to homemade carrot cupcakes instead.

While I’m here I thought I’d show you the lady in the cup. My father bought this teaset back from somewhere for my mother a long time ago. Never used, it sat on a high shelf collecting dust when I was a child but I’d occasionally take down a tiny cup to watch the lady’s face appear at the bottom if you held them up to the light.

I’ve got a horrible feeling a similar one may have inspired TPau’s ‘China In Your Hand’.