Eating my way across Macau

The great thing about Hong Kong being a port city means there are many options for quick get-away. Like yesterday, I went on an impromtu day-trip to Macau with some friends. There are ferries that leave for Macau at least once every half an hour, so there was no need to book tickets in advanced. In fact, it wasn't too difficult to buy tickets just 1 hour ahead of our desired departure from the Sheung Wan ferry terminal.

Macau has delicious street food and local specialties, and other international favourites--like this Taiwanese Peppered flavoured pork bun. It was so juicy and meaty!

Photo: CathC

I didn't try this Ottoman style hand made ice cream, but the vendor put on a great show while he served it. He kept teasing the kids by pretending to hand over the ice cream, yet always putting it out of reach.

Photo: CathC

The popularity of Macau's almond cookies among tourists kept the numerous pastry stores in business throughout the city. There are dozens of stores almond cookies, peanut candy, and other pastries like egg rolls on every street. There must be at least 10-15 of such pastry stores along the road leading up to Ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral (大三巴牌坊). The awesome thing about these tourists-y places is that there are free samples everywhere. Even though these are pastry stores, they also sell pork jerky, dried squid and, nuts even. And they offer samples of various jerky and pastries to draw in the crowds.

Photo: CathC

After getting our fill of jerky and pastries,we went over to O Santos for a traditional Portuguese lunch of roasted pig, dried codfish, baked duck rice. The food was ok and this well known restaurant has drew in a lot of famous HK actors in the past (according to the photos on the wall). But I didn't like they refused to serve anything but bottled water and drinks/juice--effectively "forcing" you to buy something to drink.

The eating continued after lunch at a local Chinese Dessert shop specializing in steamed milk pudding. This restaurant was pretty unique, and consists of 3 floors. So to facilitate the ordering between the kitchen and the different floors, they use an elevator system. I normally don't like ginger and milk pudding, because it's too milky but this bowl had a nice mixture of both flavours. Yum.

Photo: CathC

Over on the Taipa (氹仔) side, I tried lots of Macau specialties like pork chop buns and Portugese tarts.Just like HK, the restaurants in Macau are small, and can be difficult to accommodate large groups.So the 10 of us just ended up eating our buns/tarts literally standing outside of the restaurant (we got a lot of stares but attracted a lot of passers-by too). The bun was surprisingly tasty without being too oily and the buns were fresh and crunchy too!

Photo: CathC

What a satisfying trip to Macau--eating my way around the city! Looking forward to coming back and trying more local favourites...