ขนมไหว้พระจันทร์จากร้านอาหารเชียงการีลา

I stopped by for lunch at Shangarila Restaurant Thaniya (ภัตตาคารเชียงการีลา) on Silom Road in Bang Rak. It has been in operations for almost 60 years. The name kills me but it serves up super tasty Thai-Chinese-Cantonese cuisine. They've learnt to go easier on the salt and oil, and sugar, so their dishes have become wayyy better over the years. 

Their socials aren't super updated but give them a call before you go, and they should have a table for you, unless it's on weekends and the major holidays. It's right at Sala Daeng BTS, which means it's only a short distance for me if I'm staying in a hotel on Ploen Chit. From where I am at Central in Ladprao, it's about 30-minute journey via a car, and 1hr 45min ride via the MRT and a transfer to BTS to get to the Silom line. 

After lunch, we left with some more food. The friends bought us a small tin of two mooncakes from Shangarila to bring home to Singapore. Smart. It was small enough for me to appreciate. I'm not big on mooncakes. How could the husband and I finish four mooncakes (in a box) before they turn moldy? They either be super small or just two — I could just about do a nibble or so. 

Mid-Autumn Festival is also known in Thai as ไหว้พระจันทร์ (Wai Phra Chan). The Koreans call it Chuseok (they make songpyeon); Vietnam calls it a children's festival of lanterns as Tết Trung Thu. The Japanese make tsukimi dango and term it as 月見 (Tsukimi) or お月見 (Otsukimi), or if it's really formal — 中秋の名月 (Chushu no Meigetsu). Moon pastries differ from country to country.  

Thai mooncakes are called ขนมไหว้พระจันทร์, khanom wai phra chan, or following Teochew roots, khanom pia, ขนมเปี๊ยะ. I wasn't going to give this box to anyone. It's precious. I would eat it. So I did. Right on Mid-Autumn Festival. 

My khanom pia came with two fillings. One was filled with nuts, known as five-kernel mooncake. This one doesn't hold meat. It's crazy packed with nuts that it wasn't even sweet. Instead of maltose, the restaurant used glutinous rice flour to bind them together. Super crunchy and dense. The other was a standard filling of lotus seed paste and a single salted DUCK egg yolk. 

สุขสันต์ วันไหว้พระจันทร์