I discovered a new type of muah chee - Hainanese Muah Chee, by a brand called All Things Hainanese. The Southern Chinese have their versions of mochi (餅 in Japanese) called muah chee (麻糍 in Chinese). (The words sound similar but there are differing explanations on where the pronunciation came from.) The most common types in Singapore are either diced small pieces coated with toppings such as ground peanuts (traditionally) or tang yuan (汤圆 ball-shaped dumplings with lava fillings such as sesame or peanut).
Hainanese muah chee was quite different, as you can see.
The muah chee was shaped as flat circular discs, kind of like the Japanese ceremonial mochi or niangao (年糕) as you can see below. And there was nothing inside it, just a plain lumps of mochi stacked on each other.
Furthermore, the toppings were more like a sauce than a powder. Specifically, it was like a wet ginger soup-based sauce with ground ginger, peanuts and I think toasted sesame seeds.
The ginger taste was like the tang yuan ginger soup, but sweeter. And the peanut-sesame part tasted like the typical fragrant peanut-sesame combination in many Chinese desserts. However, I think it was the first time that I tried this ginger and peanut-sesame combination, and I personally did not like it. Firstly, I think the fragrance of the ginger and the peanut/sesame kind of clashed. Ginger was warm and herby whereas peanut/sesame has a sweet roasted fragrance creamy nuttiness that kind of clashed.
Secondly, it was too sweet and not balanced out by enough salt. But I think the fundamental problem is the clashing taste. For one, tang yuan ginger soup does not go with salt. Whereas peanut-sesame desserts and pastes normally add quite a bit to balance out the fragrance and creamy nuttiness (think of hour peanut butter has salt normally).
Finally, I think the soggy sauce kind of made the muah chee somewhat slimy. Even tang yuan is normally not left in the soup for too long.
So I personally prefer either the dry muah chee varieties, or else if it is soup, I will go all-in with the wet soupy version, not this in-between one. And perhaps if I had tried it warm, it would have made a big difference, like spiced chai tea latte with mochi balls or something haha. I couldn't find much info on Hainanese muah chee online, but the one post I saw was a dry ball version that was also based on ginger, peanut and sesame. I think that probably would have worked slightly better.
Nonetheless, if you are in Singapore and would like to try, the picture below has the details of the supplier.
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