When visiting Kluang, in central part of Johor, one of the must-buys that cannot be missed is Yuen Fatt Biscuit's Shanghai mooncakes. Yuen Fatt Biscuit (源发饼家) is a traditional bakery that specialises in Chinese traditional biscuits, including mooncakes. During Mid-Autumn Festivals, the bakery is always crowded with long queues.
Outside of the Mid-Autumn Festivals, Yuen Fatt Biscuit will make a wide range of biscuits for sales, including various flavours of heong piah, mung bean biscuits, curry puffs, walnut biscuits, cow-ear biscuits (牛耳饼), etc, and also walnut and butter cakes.
A warmer shelf in one corner houses the freshly-baked pastries with shorter shelf-life, such as char siew buns, Portuguese egg-tarts and two types of Shanghai mooncakes (the usual round type and "pillow"-shape long type). Yuen Fatt's Shanghai mooncakes are available all year round, not just during Mid-Autumn Festivals.
Close to Mid-Autumn Festival, Yuen Fatt will be geared up mainly to sell mooncakes only, especially their signature Shanghai mooncakes with the "pillow" shape — locals coined them as "mouse" mooncakes (老鼠月饼). Apart from being great-tasting, it is splendid as gifts too.
The "mouse" mooncake comes in 3 flavours with different fillings: lotus seed (莲蓉), pandan (翡翠) and red bean (豆沙) — and with 1- or 2-salted egg yolks or just plain. The holes on the mooncakes are believed to allow hot air to escape during baking to prevent the crusts from breaking up.
Unlike traditional mooncakes, which usually have skins with slightly-chewy texture, Yuen Fatt's Shanghai mooncake is made of soft and crumbly shortcrust pastry with a buttery aroma and taste — similar to egg tart's crust. The fillings are not too sweet too. They taste great!
Mid-Autumn Festival 2023 is round the corner and I made a trip to Kluang to get some Shanghai mooncakes including the ball-shape mooncakes from Yuen Fatt. I bought all the 4 different flavours available — 3 flavours are the same as the mouse mooncakes and an additional green tea (绿茶) flavour — in a box without salted egg yolks. They tastes great as expected and I like the softer-crust Shanghai mooncakes over the traditional types.
Apart from Shanghai mooncakes, there are also traditional mooncakes of the same 4 flavours too.
Address:
Yuen Fatt Biscuit (源发饼家)
39, Jalan Haji Manap Nordin, Taman Kluang Baru, 86000 Kluang, Johor, Malaysia
Opening Hours:
8:30am to 6pm | Sunday till 4pm | Closed on Wednesday