Macau

A trip to Macau doesn't always involve gambling and partying. We took a short trip over the left side of the harbor and found ourselves in the sinful city within one hour of boat ride. Our mission was to stroll around like tourists and tried out the most go restaurants recommended by guidebooks.

The city was not new to me at all.. especially if my memory is right i might have come to the city almost every month or so recently, doing the exact same thing, visiting the same restaurants since i always come with different groups of people, complaining the lack of cabs running on the streets, stuffing my stomach with local delicacies and dragging my exhausted body back to hk at the end of the day.

There is a lot of coverage of the macau local restaurants, praising how authentic and old fashion the food is... think about it.. there's really not much to do if you are not a big gambler, there are not that many site seeing places that can wow you, shopping is not that big of a deal you can now find the renowned almond biscuits in hk now. The only thing to do in macau is to eat....

We only had six hours in the city to stuff our stomach. Following our local friend's recommendation, here is the rundown of what define macau:

1st stop - 青州劉記 - most guidebooks would have told you to go to 大利來記 for pork chop bun, the place was so over-hyped now what you have lined up for doesn't live up to expectation anymore. Our local detective recommended lau gei instead, the restaurant was basically resembled a hk style street food stall with limited ventilation system and sense of hygiene, and quite different to locate. What should one order - the pork chop and fish ball noodles, and pork chop bun. The pork chop was extremely tender and fluffy and juicy, it didn't require a set of strong teeth to chew the meat. Pork chop with plain bun, something so simple can taste so good.

2nd stop - Lord Stow's bakery 安德魯 - I actually like portguese style egg tart more than the hk style, probably because the caramelized top of portguese egg tart adds another layer of smoky flavor and the egg custard is more creamy. They also come in smaller size so they're perfect for afternoon snack. Their serradura 木糠布甸 is very tasty as well. They are very generous with the application of 木糠, and the milk pudding is dense and smooth, and not so sweet. Does it worth the 100mod cab ride, hell yes!

3rd stop - 海灣餐廳 Restaurant Litoral - I did literally go to A Lorcha everytime visiting macau, for dinner we went to Litoral instead. It turned out all the walking in macau wasn't able to burn out all the calories intake within the day, we couldn't order that much food for our early bird dinner. The african chicken indeed tasted very good, the chicken meat was almost like super tender shredded beef and tomato sauce was a great compliment to the dish. The beef marrow in red wine was just so-so..the homemade quality.

It's not bad to visit macau for a weekend getaway.. especially the food is much cheaper than hong kong although the former generally lacks the entertainment element, but I think I should take a break from it for a short while.. at least to avoid stepping my foot into the city for the rest of the year.