Although the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, is still some way off, mooncakes in a variety of flavours have already been prepared at the Westin Hotel Shanghai.

Traditional mooncakes are usually filled with lotus seed paste, cooked pork or even with egg yolks, but the Westin Dim-sum chefs have created some novel varieties. The new filling flavours include satay beef; lotus root with scallop; pumpkin with glutinous rice; red bean with glutinous rice; grape with glutinous rice and taro with glutinous rice. The latter two have been developed for the first time. Unlike the traditional fillings, which are often considered too sweet, these new ones all feature special flavours designed to avoid this flaw. For instance, the satay beef mooncakes taste somewhat spicy and especially savoury, while the lotus root with scallop -- my favourite -- is slightly sweet, yet with all ingredients mixed in perfect harmony.

Changes have also been made to the round pastry wrappings of the mooncakes. The new pastry tastes much crispier than the usual baked kind and also less oily.

The Westin Shanghai presents two mooncake sets for this year's mid-autumn day: "Harmony" (258 yuan, US$32) containing six cakes and "Tranquility" (128 yuan, US$16) with four.

Westin Shanghai
Location: 88 Central Henan Road
Tel: 021-63351888