If they are the traditional kind, meh, OK. If they are the ones made out of chocolate with chocolate ice cream in the middle - 肯定喜欢！

I voted "meh" but not sure I've had the ones that would be yummy to Western taste buds.

I've heard of moonpies, but not mooncakes. I suppose they're the same thing, in which case, "meh."

I'm generally un-thrilled by traditional Asian desserts - they're either too sweet (India and Iran, for example) or not sweet enough (Japan and China, for example). I'll have to look for the chocolate moon cakes, though.

My rule is usually "go to Asia for dinner and go to Europe for dessert". ;)

James

And America for breakfast?

Sounds good to me.

Moon pie is actually the brand name for a chocolate dessert with a graham cracker and marshmallow filling. Not at all like a mooncake.

The first time I heard about a mooncake I immediately thought about my family joking about "mud pies" when I was younger.

I was thinking moonpie==mooncake.. lotus paste? i wonder what that tastes like :)

I just had a mooncake with a super flavorful bright yellow egg yolk in the center. Interesting concept, but has an overall effect of "meh"

OK, then I'd like to change my vote from "meh." to "huh?"

You can chase me all through China with those things...then again, my wife recently told me that she had the best of her life in Singapore which was part ice-cream, so maybe I should withdraw my "no way" until I have tried those...

I must say that the egg-yolk-in-the-middle kind doesn't quite work for me, but I've had quite a few I've really enjoyed: lotus seed, durian, honeydew, red bean, mango, pear, strawberry, sesame... The strangest ones I've tried were both in Guangxi (and both quite sweet) are sausage/lotus seed/nuts (quite common) and garlic/sesame (as far as I know, specialty of a Zhuang village).

Perhaps a photo could be added to the poll to alleviate the mooncake/moonpie confusion. Also it sounds like you need a "Never heard of them before" option.

:)

http://www.google.com/images?q=moon+cake

http://www.google.com/images?q=moon+pie

I grew up hearing "Gimme an RC Cola and a Moon Pie, it's all right", maybe even this version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaxIhdKZ00Q

Apparently this was actually a 10-cent package deal in the 50's: http://nashville.about.com/cs/historynsites/a/rcnmoonpie.htm

I'm getting a little nauseous just thinking about it...

James

I've heard of them but never had them. So no option for me on this poll.

My wife makes mooncakes.

http://home.exetel.com.au/~mjd/yuebing.jpg

These are ones I took to work for my colleagues. I hope you're all insanely jealous :-)

I'm a huge mooncake advocate. The best one I had this year had a green-tea gelatin exterior (rather than the typical cake exterior) and 绿豆沙 inside - delicious! Another standout was the chocolate-filled one that one of my students' parents gave me in a gift box - most of those ones (meant to be French-style, meh) were nothing special, but the chocolate one was pretty excellent - it had a nice bitter chocolate filling.

My fallback is 红豆沙 though - preferably without the 蛋黄 - I've not had many of those that came out particularly well, though it works on occasion...