Look back at the Moon Festival on 21 September at HOT&HOT
The traditional Moon Festival fell on 21 September in 2021. It is an important occasion for Chinese and those who live in areas greatly immersed in the influence of Confucian culture. Why the moon?
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In ancient China, people believed that the moon became the brightest and the fullest in the middle of the month. Coincidently, it is the harvest time, making the mid of autumn a time of joyfulness.
The full moon also symbolizes the gathering and reunion of family. “圆yuán 月yuè” （full moon in Chinese) could be interpreted as “团tuán 圆yuán” (reunion in Chinese). As being romanticized by the legend of Chang’e (click to know more), the Moon Festival is the time when family members come back home to have dinner together. Families talk about everyone’s life and share moon cakes after dinner.
A hotpot dinner is definitely one of the best ways to spend your Moon Festival.
Hot pot is a unique and popular Chinese cuisine especially suitable for groups to enjoy together. Your family and you would sit around the table with a hot pot on it. Tasty and flavorful soup is boiling.
You cook fresh food ingredients such as Australian Wagyu beef slices, lamb rolls, lotus roots, tofu skins etc. in the soup, and try out the hotpot hack you see on TikTok (click for more).
At the sauce buffet, you make your own dipping sauce following the guide (click for more) that we provide. The dipping sauce would add more flavors to the cooked food and protect your tongue from getting burned.
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This year, HOT&HOT – your favorite and the best hotpot restaurant in the Netherlands – planned something special for the Moon Festival! We invited customers to participate small games (click for the short video). They would pick one from the questions cards. If they answered correctly, a bottle of Chinese baijiu spirit would be given to them as the prize!
It was so much fun. Almost every table got the special prize. We cheered with baijiu to the Moon Festival to appreciate the tasty meal we had and the precious time that we spent together.
When customers almost finished eating, we surprised them with free moon cakes – the signature snack people always enjoy on the day of the Moon Festival. The sweetness of the moon cake adds up to the flavorful and joyful hotpot journey! We hope this little surprise could bring more joy to our customers 😀
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The Moon Festival is about family gathering and reunion. Then what if someone could not go home to spend the day with their family and beloved ones?
Poets in ancient China already gave us an answer.
He once wrote: “但愿人长久，千里共婵娟。”
It says that we wish each other a long life and stay safe so as to share the beauty of this graceful moonlight, even though we are miles apart.
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We share the same moon even though we are miles apart from each other. Toast to the moon! Let the moon bring our wishes to the ones that we cherish.
Happy Moon Festival!
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