World Foodie Guide

This is the third in a series of Postcards from the recent Hong Kong, Macau and Beijing traveleating trip. Rather than writing up each food experience in separate posts, which would have taken me up to Christmas, I thought it would be more fun to outline the trip in diary form, to include travel and sightseeing tips as well as food recommendations.

Day 3 highlights:

• ferry journey from Hong Kong to Macau
• lunch at Restaurante Litoral
• foodie places in Macau

Ferry journey from Hong Kong to Macau:

As there were very few full days in Hong Kong on this trip, I had no option but to choose a weekend to go to Macau, when it’s busier (and the tickets slightly more expensive). It’s quite complicated to book ferry tickets in advance from abroad, but easy if you’re in HK (from various MTR stations even). I asked my hotel to do it for me (tickets were HK$300 return per person, plus a miniscule HK$30 service charge, all added to my hotel bill), and they were waiting for me when I checked in at the hotel. Apparently ferry tickets never sell out, but I wasn’t going to turn up on the day and chance it! We also invited my mother to go with us, because she was born in Macau two months after the war ended in Asia, but hasn’t been there in years.

The Macau Ferry Terminal is a short walk from Sheung Wan MTR, and once inside the Shun Tak Centre, the Turbojet area is up the escalator on the third floor. We were allowed to get on an earlier ferry too, so we didn’t have to hang around for an extra forty minutes. Going through passport control and check-in took less than 10 minutes. The journey was a relatively smooth one hour, apart from the three noisy men sitting behind us who were already gambling away with their cup and dice. Others were so eager to start gambling that they were queuing to get off before we had even reached the harbour.

I have to admit that apart from where to eat, the Macau part of the China trip was entirely unplanned. I didn’t even have a map to hand until I found one at the Macau Ferry Terminal in Hong Kong. So we decided to take a taxi to what looked like a busy part of town, as a starting point – Avenida de D Joao IV. A tip – you can use your HK dollars in Macau, so you don’t have to waste time and money changing your dollars into patacas! I’d sent my poor mother off to do this the day before and she was told this by her bank.

According to my mother, Macau resembles old Hong Kong in many ways. It’s changed a lot in recent years with more and more flashy casinos being built, but we saw some old-fashioned streets and traditional scenes as we walked off the beaten track – a pomelo skin drying outside a window; little shops selling traditional almond cakes, dried salted fish, abalone, whelk, seahorses and sharks fin; laundry hanging outside old apartment blocks, once grand Portuguese-style buildings now run down and neglected, tiled street signs on the walls in Chinese and Portuguese; a disused firecracker factory; an old man shaping tin cans; a street barber cutting hair; a man roasting chestnuts on the street; fish and seafood drying in the sunshine. This walk was definitely the highlight of our short trip

Lunch at Restaurante Litoral:

The original plan was to have both lunch and dinner in Macau (A Lorcha being the dinner choice), but after we invited my mother along, we decided that it would be too long a day for her (and us). Again, our hotel booked Litoral for me weeks ago, so all we had to do was locate it. Most people go to either of these or to Fernando’s on the beach.

The interior is very Portuguese with white walls and blue and white ceramic tiles, and it’s staffed by non-Chinese who spoke very little Portuguese when the husband addressed them. Despite the presence of a surly waitress, it was a welcome relief to be indoors and away from the glare of the sun for a while. From the bilingual menu of Macanese and Portuguese food, we ordered the pasteis de bacalhau – cod fish cakes (HK$68), canja de galinha - chicken rice soup (HK$48), grilled fresh black cod (HK$148) and the galinha Africana - African chicken – half (HK$180).

The pasteis were excellent – perfectly fried and very light. The husband pronounced them as the best that he has ever had (he used to live in Rio and has been to Portugal many times). My mother and I loved the flavoursome chicken rice soup, which is just like congee but slightly runnier. Finally, the famous African chicken arrived, with some sliced potato. The chicken was pre-cut, so there was no carving involved, and the pieces were covered with a thick orangey-red sauce, slightly spicy and quite strong in flavour. It was interesting, but as I hadn’t had African chicken before, I didn’t really know what to expect. It’s not spectacular (as my mother warned me) but it was tasty enough. Lunch for three came to MOP550 (£42).

Foodie Places in Macau: (see original Macau shortlist)

Tired from the long walk and lunch, we formulated a quick plan, to find the famous Ko Kei bakery so that my mother could buy cakes to take home and Margaret’s Cafe e Nata for some Portuguese egg tarts. We had planned to travel to Taipa and Coloane, but it seemed a bit too ambitious in the intense heat. So that we will do on another Macau trip, along with visits to Lord Stow’s for Portuguese egg tarts and Tai Lei Loi Kei for the famous pork chop buns (only 300 are made every day and people arrive early to queue for the 3pm opening time).

After a short taxi ride back to the touristy centre, and a long walk through some very busy streets leading up to the Ruins of St Paul’s, we finally located not one but three branches of Koi Kei, all on Rua de S. Paulo (at the top end, from where you’ll see St Paul’s). They were heaving with people, especially as samples of absolutely everything were being handed out, from the ubiquitous almond cakes to pork jerky. You could fill up on snacks by walking to and from these three shops and accepting everything thrusted at you! I also tried a Portuguese egg tart (HK$7). It looked gorgeous, but was eggier than I expected, particularly compared to the ones in Belem, Lisbon, which are sweeter.

The final mission of locating Margaret’s was tricky, and the directions I had found online turned out to be terrible. But as I wasn’t going to Lord Stow’s anymore, I had to visit his ex-wife’s bakery. People say one should visit both to compare the taste of their egg tarts! After a wander around where we thought it was supposed to be, my mother asked for directions a few times, and then we finally found it. Shop owners around the area seem to be used to people asking them for directions. It’s a sweet little cafe, with outdoor seating and various cakes and sandwiches on offer. Margaret’s egg tart (HK$7) was preferable to the Ko Kei one, being less eggy, but by then, I was so tired and so full that all I wanted to do was catch the ferry back to Hong Kong.

Again, it was possible to catch an earlier ferry back. However, it was a rough ride and every time the ferry lurched upwards, a man two rows back would throw up. When we finally arrived, there were three full sick bags by his feet. And another man was cutting his toenails behind us. All in all, it was a very interesting trip. And by the way, if you go to Macau and don’t fancy lugging back bags of goodies to HK, you can find Koi Kei in the food hall in Sogo, Causeway Bay! Of course, there’s no atmosphere there, no samples to try and the products not quite as fresh, but it does save you carrying a lot of bags onto the ferry.

N.B You’ll find all the China Postcards under Restaurant Reviews – China, and the entire set of food photos on Flickr.

CONTACT DETAILS:

Restaurante Litoral (they accept reservations)
Rua do Almirante Sergio 261A
Macau
Tel: 853 2896 7878
www.restaurante-litoral.com

Margaret’s Cafè e Nata
Gum Loi Building
Rua Alm. Costa Cabral (along Avenida D. Joao IV and not too far from Sintra Hotel)
Macau
Tel: 853 2871 0032

Helen Yuet Ling Pang @ World Foodie Guide

Tags: China, dining out, food, Hong Kong, Ko Kei, Litoral, Macau, Margaret's, Portuguese, restaurant review, restaurants, travel, traveleating