Mooncake and lantern season is upon us, as Philly’s Chinese, Vietnamese, and other Southeast and East Asian families prepare for the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated when the moon is at its roundest and brightest. The harvest holiday is rooted in the legend of the goddess Chang’e’s ascension to the moon (with her pet rabbit) and it occurs on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. This year, it’s Monday, Oct. 6.
Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the four most important Chinese holidays (the others being Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival, and Ching Ming Festival, when families gather and sweep the graves of their ancestors). Many Philadelphia bakeries and a few pop-ups are celebrating with mooncakes: thin and intricate pastry shells with dense, almost fudgy fillings that are dotted with golden orbs of salted egg yolks to mimic the fullness of the moon.
Slice into a traditional mooncake and you’ll usually find lotus root, wintermelon, or red bean paste. There are also very non-traditional variants made with mochi, and filled airy matcha cream, yuzu mousse, or ice cream. And keep an eye out for Labubu mooncakes, fashioned after Pop Mart’s ultra viral purse charm creatures.
Mooncakes in Asia are often extravagant gifts exchanged between business associates and friends, so every year restaurants and brands try to outdo one another with luxurious, innovative packaging and off-kilter fillings. (Mooncakes stuffed with truffle-flavored fillings and beef Wellington have become popular in Hong Kong in recent years). They’re canvases for pastry chefs to get creative, as mooncakes can be sweet, savory, or both at once. They frequently celebrate the past year’s most significant trends — hence Labubu mooncakes.
Whether you plan to cut sweet paste-filled mooncakes into slivers and serve them with hot tea, or to bite into puffy versions filled with pork floss and egg, here’s where to find mooncakes in Philly. A few bakeries sell beautifully packaged versions with advanced notice, but most of the following can be bought individually, so you can mix and match the flavors you desire. All of the mooncakes on this list are baked locally or in-house, but you’ll also find imported mooncakes sold by the tin at restaurants that don’t normally serve pastries, such as Yin Ji Rice Roll in Chinatown.
And one more note: Because Mid-Autumn Festival is such a significant holiday and an important one to spend with one’s family, some Chinese bakeries may be closed — like Cantonese-inflected Dodo Bakery in South Philly, which will reopen on Oct. 9. (It sold mooncakes last week.)
Asia Bakery
This miniscule Chinese and Vietnamese bakery in Chinatown sells mooncakes year-round but goes all out prior to the Mid-Autumn Festival, when they stock an entire floor-to-ceiling shelf with their traditional mooncakes. They come in both mini and standard sizes (about 4 inches in diameter). Their pastry crust tastes like softened fortune cookies and are filled with sweet black bean paste (with and without salted egg yolk), lotus paste, red bean paste, melon paste, and crushed nuts. They’re sold by the piece, ranging from $5.50 and $6 for large cakes and $3.50 for the minis.
Asia Bakery, 115 N. 10th St., Philadelphia, PA 19107; 215-238-9295
Dim Sum Garden
Dim Sum Garden sells mooncakes by the piece and by the package — they have beautiful paper gift boxes, including one that resembles a cross between a Louis Vuitton purse and an Hermes orange box. They sell both traditional mooncakes — made with decorative molds — and fresh pork mooncakes, which are more uncommon and taste like a dense pork bun, priced at $5 per piece. Their pork floss-and-salted egg yolk mooncake is savory and incredibly delicious, and they have a wonderful sweet purple yam mooncake that also has a salted egg yolk center. Prices range from $30 for a box of four and $55 for a box of eight, varying slightly depending on the type of mooncake. Cash only.
Dim Sum Garden, 1024 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19107; 215-873-0258; dimsumgardenphilly.com
Hong Kong Bakery
Hong Kong Bakery also sells mooncakes year-round but makes far more of them at this time of year. They have traditional lotus and red bean mooncakes with egg yolk centers, but the star of their show is their durian mooncake — filled with a lightly sweet, dense, tropical, just a little bit funky durian paste. It’s one of the best bites in this mooncake tour. Prices range from $7.50 to $8.75 per mooncake.
Hong Kong Bakery, 917 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19107; 215-925-1288; instagram.com/hkbakery_philly
Mayflower Bakery
Mayflower sells traditional mooncakes by the piece for $10 each. Their five-nut mooncake is akin to a very dense and nutty banana bread (without the bananas), and they also have red bean, lotus with egg yolk, and melon paste mooncakes.
Mayflower Bakery, 1008 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19107; 215-629-5668
A La Mousse
A La Mousse is famous for its trompe-l’œil mousse cakes: white chocolate shells resembling tangerines and mangoes surrounding airy, fruity mousse. It’s not surprising, then, that they sell some of the most innovative mooncakes in Philadelphia, encased in the most stunning paper gift boxes. These must be preordered at least two days in advance, and they’re available at all three of their locations, in Chinatown, Graduate Hospital, and Narberth. Some of their fillings skew traditional — like wintermelon with salted egg and five nuts — but they also make mooncakes flavored with rose, matcha, and yuzu lava custards. Some are fashioned into cute pig faces and Labubus. Boxes contain an assortment of flavors and are $48 for six pieces and $62 for eight pieces.
A La Mousse, 145 N. 11th St., Philadelphia, PA 19107, 215-238-9100; 1622 South St., Philadelphia, PA 19146; 215-546-3888; 920 Montgomery Ave., Narberth, PA 19072; 610-664-6888; instagram.com/alamousse
Bread Top House
Family-owned bakery Bread Top House normally only makes mini lotus paste and red bean mooncakes containing just a single salted egg yolk, but they expand their offerings in the days leading up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, baking larger, double-egg-yolk mooncakes. Owners Di Meng Deng and Su Mei Li, originally from Guangdong, make an incredible pineapple mooncake, akin to popular Taiwanese pineapple cakes, with an almost gelatinous, delicately sweet filling, in addition to ones filled with green bean paste and wintermelon. Venmo and cash only.
Bread Top House, 1041 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19107; 215-925-3802; instagram.com/breadtophouse
Càphê Roasters
Càphê Roasters chef Minh Tran and barista Phat Tang (who runs the tiny 9802 Bakery out of the Harrowgate cafe’s kitchen) are teaming up to offer a jam-filled cookie riff on mooncakes from Oct. 3 to 6. They’ll be serving a limited number of matcha-pineapple moon-cookies and moon-cookies filled with sweet shredded coconut each day until sold out.
Càphê Roasters, 3400 J St., Suite G1, Philadelphia, PA 19134; 215-690-1268; capheroasters.com
Bakewithmiii
Pop-up baker Mi Phong’s Taiwan 3Q mooncake is a modern take on a mooncake, made with sweet taro paste, soft and chewy mochi, salted egg yolks, and pork floss, all wrapped in a Taiwanese-style flaky pastry. “The name 3Q comes from the three key elements that define this Taiwanese creation. Traditional Taiwanese mooncakes usually have a pale, flaky crust, a perfectly round shape, and a golden egg wash topped with sesame seeds,” said Phong. She is planning another mooncake pop-up either Oct. 11 or 12.