Mooncake Festival (properly called the Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Gawking at Moon Festival) is coming soon, and my friendly neighbourhood bakery is stocking up on baked goods for the season.

Besides the usual mooncakes, they also included some piggy biscuits. I used to eat piggy biscuits all the time as a kid, and they came in various shapes, such as fish and pistols, besides the porcine shape. In fact we didn’t call them piggy biscuits, we called them “gong zai beang” which means “picture biscuits”.

Piggy biscuits sometimes come in a plastic “pig pen” that represents the cage used to take piggies to market. Adulterous couples in Olde China were also drowned in such cages, apparently. Very morbid. Anyway, Ng Kim Lee bakery was selling these “pigs in baskets” so I bought one.

Not the piggy in a basket that I bought. That was only 60 cents. This bigger version with black-bean eyes is “premium”, got ribbon wan…

I hadn’t seen this before so I bought it to try. It’s basically this “moon cake” re-imagined. Made of the same stuff, same chewy texture. Yay, now I don’t have to go all the way to Sheng Siong to look for it! There was also “soft bean cake” that I used to be very fond of, but it’s quite expensive and anyway I’m not craving it.

I bought a packet of “hup toh soh” or “Walnut Blast”, but it didn’t compare to the ones from KL. Yes, I know that whatever you eat as a child will taste better, but these ones really disappointed me. They’re going to the office instead. When I’m hungry I won’t be fussy about the taste.