I left my childhood home and my parents many years ago for the boarding middle school. And I barely recall that I was home for the mid-autumn festival celebration in those middle school (high school) years. Then I left for college. And the college was a bit far away from my hometown.
About 36 years ago, the mid-autumn festival party organized by the HUST 浙江同乡会 left me impression. Because in 1989, it was the first year I was in HUST (Wuhan) and far away from home Ning’bo, and not to mention I really missed home. I believe many HUST friends who are from Zhejiang province missed home too. I recall the hostess (the girl who is toast master) is a Shi’jie from Zhenhai middle school, and her last name is Su. Sorry I forgot her 1st name now. 她说了一句话让我现在还记得：我们来自于吴山青，越水秀 (google search) 的故乡浙江省。
Reading Time: 3minutes杏花楼广式月饼 and 稻香村苏式月饼 from 亚米网
And eat some moon cakes. I just realized I wrote something about mid autumn festival way back in year 2007. I believe I was in Shanghai when I wrote this, and it was after we had honeymoon in San’ya, Hainan, China.
Time flies. Now we have 2 kids, and I don’t see any special mid-autumn festival logos on Baidu or Google home pages. But I saw one at Google Vietnam page. I did see this (浓情迎中秋) at Baidu 热搜。
For me this year, I bought some 杏花楼广式月饼 and 稻香村苏式月饼 from 亚米网 (yamibuy.com). We bought moon cakes at Costco in the past: not a big fan of those。我们以前经常在百利买加州的生计月饼（Sheng Kee bakery，我记得去过一次她家的Milpitas 分店. As the name suggests, this is a Hong Kong/Cantonese style, and I visited their bakery at Milpitas CA once many years ago）。今年百利可能卖完了，好像没看到生计月饼。
Local Bakeries in the STL area
I think when I was new to the US and studied at Rolla. The fresh baked mooncakes at the WeiHong Bakery (味香饼家) was a treat. Now it seems there are other choices (not mooncake), such as The Foundry Bakery: and recently I added it to my Authentic Asian Food In The STL Area post. I just heard from an Indian friend that their Naisu Milk Bun 奶酥面包 is fantastic. Before pandemic I go to a Korean bakery near Olive and 141 once a while too. Last but not least, the La Boone Bouche at Olive and Tempo drive is so busy nowadays.
A meme on mooncake
The Mooncakes Cometh!
(Who knew the alien invasion would start this way?)
Baidu Zhidao: 上海面包店有哪些牌子 Note many bakeries in Shanghai makes and sells mooncakes (a mostly seasonal item). Below are the list.
克莉丝汀 – I remember once I got 美式咖啡 from there, there are quite a lot Christen’s Bakeries in Shanghai. About 10 years ago, I found when I visit China, it’s hard to get black coffee (not instant coffee). I am a coffee drinker, and I found the places that I can always get good or decent American black coffee (pot coffee, basically we make them via grounded coffee at many American homes), is McDonald’s and Starbucks (not many small cities have McDonald’s and Starbucks). And add the Christen’s Bakery in Shanghai too.
静安面包房
85度C: this is a chain started in Taiwan. I recall visited their store in one of those places (Lan’xi or Quan’zhou). They are in California too.
苹果园
香特莉
季诺
可颂坊 (the link is their mobile website): I recall seen or being there before 1997. Baike 百度百科 link here.
元祖 (Wikipedia): another chain started in Taiwan. I went there once, and it surprised me that their products are quite expensive.
Last but not least, a bit explanation on the Mid Autumn Festival on Wikipedia. Since I left home for college, I rarely had opportunity to be back to my parents home on those holidays, though. Again 2007 was probably one of the years that I was in China for the holiday. For that matter, it’s the only year since 1998 that I spent significant amount of time in Shanghai (and China), and I wrote quite a bit on my observations on my blog. This is just one example.
