Personal Dork Assistant

Flavor Combinations

It's 中秋節 time, which means moon cakes for everyone. Unlike the infamous Christmas fruit cake, there's definitely more than one box of moon cakes being passed around, and they reproduce like polyamorous rabbits. It's standard business practice to send moon cakes to all your customers, and we're on the receiving end from our vendors. The boxes get bigger and fancier every year, and the secretary has to go around the office a couple of times before all the cakes are doled out. I get my fair share and then some, but I'm okay with the confectionary treats, in small doses anyway. 鳳梨酥 pineapple-filling shortbreads are especially popular this year, which is fine since everyone likes them although they get a bit cloyingly sweet. My palette is Asian enough to recognize red and mung bean pastes as dessert fillings, and I can even handle Taiwanese peculiarities like pork bits stuffed within said sweet bean paste. However, I finally ran into a moon cake I couldn't stomach when I got stuck with a red-bean, mochi, salted egg yolk, and dried pork "flavor" wrapped in an oily pastry skin. Holy moly that's nasty. Let's stick with the traditional flavors, please. Although I do hear good things about Starbuck's coffee moon cakes...