'Skin was dry, flaky and fell off easily': Man disgusted by 'faulty' mooncakes from Goodwood Park Hotel

Goodwood Park Hotel is known for its popular mooncakes.

But one man was disgusted to discover the snowskin of the mooncakes he purchased was not up to scratch.

"I bought four pieces of the mango with pomelo snowskin mooncake from Goodwood Park Hotel and they were delivered to me on Sept 23," recounted Stomper Karl.

"Upon receiving them, I stored them in the freezer as instructed.

"I decided to try the mooncake on Sept 24. So I took out one piece to defrost.

"When I was about to consume it, I was surprised by the quality of the snowskin. It was absolutely disgusting. It was dry, flaky, and fell out easily from the middle filling.

"It did feel like either this box of mooncakes was already faulty – maybe expired – or there was some missing ingredient during the manufacturing of the mooncake. Not saying for all but my batch at least.

"As I was planning to consume the majority of the mooncakes at a gathering during Mid-Autumn Festival on Sept 29, I gave it the benefit of the doubt – I probably didn’t defrost it long enough – and decided to try the rest later.

"Fast forward to Sept 29. This time I took another piece of the mooncake and defrosted it properly. But again, the quality of the snowskin mooncake was the same as the first, absolutely horrible. The skin was dry, flaky and fell off easily.

"That was when I realised the box of mooncakes I received was definitely off and faulty. This time, I took a video of it immediately and sent it to Goodwood Park Hotel a few days later via email on Oct 2.

"Goodwood Park Hotel responded to me on Oct 10. In the call, the person apologised for the quality of the mooncake but questioned me about the authenticity of my video (on when it was taken) and my complaint (on why I only sent the email to them on Oct 2), and it might have been our fault for consuming their mooncakes past their shelf life of five days, even though I clearly explained to him the whole situation and that we had consumed one of the pieces just one day after receiving it and the quality was already bad.

"His final response was asking me to send him a copy of my order receipt for future reference. After that, I did not hear from him again, totally ghosted me on this matter. I tried reaching him by phone, but no one answered.

"Honestly, I did expect a refund or voucher of some sort at first because this is basic consumer rights, especially when we receive something faulty."

"Yes, my video evidence was taken for the second piece of mooncake consumed on the sixth day, one day after the five-day shelf life of their mooncake. Due to that, they took advantage of the whole situation, insisting they did not need to compensate me.

"In my honest opinion, I do not believe the quality of the skin would deteriorate that much even if I consume it on the sixth day, even though the truth was the mooncake was already faulty on the second day.

"I am totally disappointed in how Goodwood Park Hotel approached this matter because based on their long experience in the mooncake industry, they should know they were at fault for the quality based on my video evidence."

The Stomper added that he no longer expects compensation and just hopes to share with consumers this advice: "If the mooncake is faulty, better get evidence and report it straight away.

"And if you are giving the mooncake as a gift, better make sure the recipient consumes it within shelf life as you can expect inedibly poor quality right after that."

In response to a Stomp query, a spokesperson for Goodwood Park Hotel said: "The hotel had previously corresponded with the guest to address his feedback and will continue to communicate with him on any further concerns he may have.

"We take all guest comments received seriously, and our internal teams do act upon feedback to continue improving and refining our service delivery and product standards.

"We regret any lapse in service which was by no means intended."