Hold My Mooncake: Umamicart’s Mid-Autumn Festival Treats Are Here

Fernet. Prostate orgasms. Russian blue cats. These are a few things we love (almost) as much as mooncakes, and even they can’t compare to the buttery bliss of our favorite Chinese pastry that comes out in full force during the Mid-Autumn Festival. “Basically, it's East Asia's answer to Thanksgiving,” Angela Hui explains in a VICE article about the celebration. The annual event is a cultural tradition that celebrates the full moon—hence, hella mooncakes. The circular cakes [symbolize] unity, family reunions, and a way of thanking the gods for a good harvest,” Hui says. 

We’ll be dipping over to New York City’s Chinatown to scoop mooncakes from our favorite little bakeries (you can find an extensive list of the district’s businesses, and learn about how to support them at Send Chinatown Love), and we’re already drooling over the Mid-Autumn offerings from one of our favorite places to buy Asian snacks online, Umamicart. In honor of the upcoming September 10 celebration, Umamicart has released an assortment of fingerlicking mooncakes with flavors for every palate. “For me, the best part [about the festival] is simply getting to enjoy delicious food and all types of mooncakes with a big group of family and friends,” Umamicart’s co-founder, Andrea Xu, tells VICE about why she loves the festival, “It’s a great holiday to be thankful!” And if it’s classic mooncake offerings you seek, Meixin’s mini mooncakes and lace lotus seed paste mooncakes are already live on the site:

Umamicart has also partnered with beloved NYC bakery, Kitsby Dessert Bar, to create a capsule box of Teochew mooncakes that includes green-tea- and sesame-flavored desserts. Sheng Kee, one of San Francisco’s most iconic Chinese bakeries, is also featured amongst the Mid-Autumn splendors with its thousand-layer, pastry-style Teochew mochi mooncakes.

Also melting on our tongues: snowy strawberry crunch mooncakes, a Hong Kong specialty with a chewy, delicate rice flour skin filled with sweet strawberry filling; and Meixin’s snowy peanut and sesame mooncakes. As the snowy adjective implies, these treats are best served (and stored) cold so as to maximize the shelf life (and taste) of its unbaked, gooey texture.

Pour yourself a big pot of green tea, and you’re set. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 

Explore all the mooncakes and tasty Asian treats on Umamicart’s website.

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.