Location: Macau

Author: My Husband

After completing the write-up on Lung King Heen in late December, I had planned to put up the next post in a couple of days. For a bunch of reasons, that couple of days quickly turned into one week. Then one week quickly turned into a couple. And in the blink of an eye, a couple of weeks became a month. A month without updating this blog… I’m not even sure I want to see what the traffic statistics look like anymore.

Over the last four weeks, a new deal has been taking up a good part of my work days. The effort that I’ve been putting into it, plus all the associated travel required to manage it, has made me want to be a passive recipient of entertainment after hours (i.e. TV!) instead of being a content creator. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to manage new deals, especially complex ones. But this non-stop action has made me look forward to a little R&R again. What better time then, to revisit our vacation from two months ago where the biggest stressor of each day was deciding where to go for our meals?

Picking up from where I left off, here’s the post on our day-trip to Macau.

The façade of St Paul’s Cathedral. Built in the 16th century, it was mostly destroyed by fire in the 1800s. Today, only the facade remains standing. This is one of the most popular tourist sites in Macau and we always visit to take photos every time we’re in town.

Modern day Macau has a bit of a schizophrenic personality. Its downtown core is filled with throngs of people and its streets jammed with loud, slow-moving traffic. There are still vestiges of Macau’s Portuguese connections in some of the architecture, but the city scene is largely dominated by cookie-cutter buildings and garishly colored signboards that reminds me of a typical mainland city. This commercial part of Macau is fast-paced and over-developed; when surrounded by the unending sea of humanity, you can’t even hear yourself think.

A street in downtown Macau. Looks a lot like Guangzhou.

People people everywhere.

But just a few streets away, a gentler Macau awaits. This is a Macau that is more like the environment in which my wife grew up – a place where the air is stiller, where golden silence is only occasionally broken by the sounds of raspy scooters putt-putting down small side streets. This part of Macau, I like.

Charming older builders, no ugly signs, no huge mass of people – this is Macau as I imagined it to be.

Along these quiet streets, you will see many small family run businesses selling specialty Macanese snacks and pastries. You will also come across a few stores specializing in Chinese desserts. This one came highly recommended by my Aunt.

A traditional Chinese dessert store. As a tribute to Macau’s Portuguese colonial past, most businesses still maintain their signage in Chinese and Portuguese.

And here are some of the desserts we had. They were cooked-to-order, and were excellent.

Almond soup.

Walnut soup.

In contrast to the quiet parts of Macau, the crowd-filled Senado Square is home to many “western” businesses.

Macau’s famed Senado Square. Who says the red-blue-white fabric is only good for carrying bags? You can use it for wrapping buildings too – who’d have thought? (heh heh, a little inside joke for our readers from HK )

The McDonald’s juggernaut first came to Macau in the late 80s, and there are now quite a number of branches in the city.

Macau hasn’t escaped the Starbucks machine either.

After wandering around Senado Square for a bit, sampling and then buying the pastry snacks that Macau is famed for, we hired a cab to take us to Coloane island where we had dinner reservations. The half-hour ride took us from the hustle and bustle of mainland Macau to the glitter of the newly developed Cotai strip, and then through open bucolic countryside to the southern tip of Coloane island. The further south we went, the more open the countryside became, and the more I liked what I saw.

We were headed to Macau’s famous Fernando’s restaurant on Black Sand Beach, but we had the cabbie make a brief detour to Lord Stow’s – original home of Portuguese egg tarts – first. The Portuguese egg tart was created by Andrew Stow in the 1980s when he adapted the recipe for the Portuguese Pastel de Nata for Asian consumption. Andrew’s (aka Lord Stow’s) Portuguese egg tarts were so popular that these delicious little treats eventually made their way all around Asia and even North America. Even today, busloads of tourists come to Lord Stow’s to buy their egg tarts. Here were ours…

We bought the tarts to go. We did see a few customers eating their egg tarts right outside the Lord Stow’s store.

OK – BEST egg tarts EVER! The custard was totally sinful, and the flaky pastry is unlike anything we’ve tried. It was both light and substantial all at once. No wonder Lord Stow’s made such a name for itself.

With our egg tarts procured and safely stowed (no pun intended), the cabbie drove us to Fernando’s. Fernando’s, run by a Portuguese proprietor, is located in a charming wood and brick building right on Black Sand Beach. It was too dark by the time we got there to actually see the beach itself, but the sounds of the lapping waves and the sea breeze made it a really atmospheric place for dinner. My wife has some fond memories of eating BBQ chicken wings at Black Sand Beach when she was a kid; she was really hoping that the BBQ vendors would be open for business, but none were that evening. I told her it was something we would do the next time we were back in Macau.

Fernando’s.

Interior of the restaurant.

Fernando’s is particularly well-known for the roast suckling pig, so that was one of the dishes we had that evening.

Individual serving of roast suckling pig. It was the first time I ate at Fernando’s, and I found the pork to be slightly underwhelming. Based on the rave reviews given by people who had eaten there, I had pretty high expectations. But in reality, the pork was only above average. The crackling was disappointing. Instead of being crunchy, it was actually quite chewy. The meat was, however, very moist and quite flavorful.

We also ordered some roast chicken. Christina did not like this, but I thought it was ok. A little overcooked and dry perhaps, but the flavour was not bad.

This crab dish was the best one of the evening. It was cooked in a flavorful and herby red sauce that complemented the sweet crab very well.

Finally, we had some fried rice. It had plenty of wok-hei and very tasty – rather nice dish to finish off the meal with.

After dinner, we hired another cab to take us to the new casinos on the Cotai Strip to walk off the food. As you will see from the following pictures, the Cotai Strip is like a mini replica of the Las Vegas strip. In fact, there is an almost identical replica of the Venetian hotel/casino there – right down to the gondolas plying the artificial lagoons.

The entrance to the hotel/casino is a dead ringer for the Las Vegas one.

And so is the clock tower.

To conclude this post, I’d like to leave you with some more pictures of Macau. I hope you enjoy them – click on the following link to bring them up. Next post: HK wrap-up.

The fast catamaran that took us to Macau. Boy, was the ride ever choppy.

The jet foil that took us back to HK. Did you know that Boeing actually built these boats back in the 60s and 70s? Pretty interesting fun fact. Ride was quite a lot smoother than the catamaran by the way.

Portuguese architecture in Macau.

Street signs in three languages.

Macau Cathedral in Senado Square.

Retail therapy in Senado Square.

Casinos along the Cotai Strip.

Neon lighting up the night skies. Unlike Las Vegas, there was a distinct lack of action in Macau after 9pm.

Sign of the economic times. Partially completed casino abandoned.