Cha Xiu Bao

The Old Man and the Tea

The old man, ah Pak, is a hunchback selling shanjisheng and steamed egg puddings close to Rotunda de Carlos da Maia (aka "three lamps"). Shanjisheng, in case you don't know, is a popular herbal tea made mostly of Chinese taxillus twig. The herb is a mistletoe, hemi-parasitic shrub but the man who sells it might as well be the least parasitic person in Macao. Instead of begging his bread or living off the back of the welfares by the government, he choses to live up a life with his bare hands without a single word of poorness uttered, night after night.

Truffle Gala Dinner at Robuchon a Galera

Paint It Black

... I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door and it has been painted black
Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
Its not easy facin' up when your whole world is black...

Hmm, hmm, hmm...

I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black

                        ~Rolling Stones

Chaxiubao's Foodyssey in Macau: The Food Streets

There are 2 streets in Macau where the maps from the Macau tourist office highlighted as the Food Street. One is the Rua do Cunha and the other Rua da Felicidade. Strangely, the Food street, so mentioned on the map in English, is referred to as the Souvenir Street by Chinese visitors and the locals. A noticeable variation since the word "souvenir" by definition means something that serves as a reminder, a token of remembrance -- normally something that's meant for keep -- whereas food, when prepared is by no means meant for keep.

Alas, in a nation where the subject food virtually precedes just about everything in life, it is not that difficult to see why food is considered the most appreciated souvenir among all and as the only souvenir that can guarantee an universal appeal.

Both streets are ridiculously harassed by streams of tourists and locals at any given day of the week, any given week of the month and any given month of the year (okay, yours truly is starting to lose count). Partly because of the food there are damn good but also in great part because all the shopkeepers are exceedingly friendly -- they literally beg you to taste their product at their storefront. If you love food, a stroll in these 2 streets would be a most pleasant one, albeit a bit crowded.

Well, just like visiting a domestic fresh market when we travel, a walk down there is destined to be as educational as it is recreational. Something, which, I will be out on a limb to say, all we foodies are very fond of. Like inside the Pastelaria Koi Kei in the Rua da Felicidade, you can behold how an almond cookie, how a ngau yuk gon, or a Chinese beef prosciutto and how a Chinese egg roll is made. And if desired, feel free to try them out with no obligation to buy whatsoever, how marvelous.

Lets take the prosciutto as example: there is no end of it in its different renditions - the beef, the pork, the chicken, the pigeon suckling, the pig suckling, the boar, the ostrich, the lamb, the deer and what not. Even if we confine to one variety like the pork only, we still have the original flavor, the chili flavor, the black-peppered, the honeyed, the loin cut, the neck cut, the jowl cut, the rib cut and so on and so forth.

Pictures! Pictures! Unlike in some pasterias or bakeries or restaurant where you have to take photos of your beloved food in the most clandestine fashion - thence reducing your good self to a food paparazzi - yet not dismissing the risk of getting shoved out (or at least side-stared at) by the shopkeepers or the waiters at any rate, here you can take pictures with TENACITY. Just like Chaxiubao did.  Mi casa su casa!

 

Chaxiubao's Foodyssey in Macau: The Breakfasts

Feb 11, 2005

Nothing primes Chaxiubao's appetite better than a bowl (or two, as circumstances dictate) of juk at the beginning of a day. A bowl of hot, well-prepared and flavorful juk.  And if anyone of you shares the empathy of Chaxiubao's, he or she may go down to the Rua da Felicidade to find a congee shop around the corner called San Yue Congee Specialist to start the day with, just like Chaxiubao did.

The menu in San Yue runs long. By default, nevertheless, the best congee of this store has to be the gup dek juk, assorted congee mixed with pig's giblet and pork meat balls, because the full name for gup dek juk used to be San Yue gup dek juk. Another juk very well worth our devouring is the congee with beef balls and pork balls, the sheung yue juk or congee avec deux boules, if you will.  

You can order the congee like any average joe, of course, like the way an average joe see it. But to show you're a congee maven and to show you're the master in this congee domain -- like Chaxiubao did -- you order it with a raw egg at your bowl -- all the more making the juk smoother and richer with flavor...

After the juk, what else? Oops, how can we forget our dim sum thingy. Sensing the emptiness in his dim sum quest, Chaxiubao headed straight to the Lung Wah Teahouse on the Avenida Do Almirante Lacerda (quite a mouthful, ain't it?). A teahouse in her thirty something, she is the only teahouse in Macau to have patrons bringing their birds for bird fight.

No, my dear good-natured reader, don't jump to the conclusion fast, not those 'dead or alive' bird fights of capital cruelty, but bird (mostly robins and babblers) fights of singing. There're even bets for "who's the next William Hung Andrea Bocelli of birds" that normally starts at 10 in the morning (Macau is lauded as the Monte Carlo of the East, after all). Even if you drop by on the day with no "official" singing contests staged, you'll still find scores of bird cage on various corners of the teahouse. Very likely, you'll walk away this dim sum teahouse happily with quite a mouthful as well as an earful...

Just like the juk and the dim sum weren't enough to call it a morning with, Chaxiubao went south to the Rua da Felicidade, again, to make the most of his morning in Macau -- to a chachannteng (Hong Kong style bistro) called Ka Ma Lun for some good old-fashioned milk tea. What a gorgeous. The milk tea looked at Chaxiubao and caught Chaxiubao's eye fixed keenly upon the her, knowing glances were telegraphed between the pair, and Chaxiubao, smiling archly, gobbled the milk tea to her very last drip...Madam, Be My Valentine.

Being a man of caution and fearing he may run into some snags in his pork chop burger pursual later that afternoon (who is to say?!), Chaxiubao also preemptively ordered a pork chop burger in Ka Ma Lun, who claims to serve the genuine version of this bun.  As if the pork chop itself is not greasy enough, a lump of butter is also spread on the bread. What the heck! My friend, it is now or never.

Chaxiubao's Foodyssey in Macau: The Desserts

Feb 10, 2005

If you fancy some Cantonese pudding-thrashing in Macau, you may want to try out this shop: Bou Jik Diary Company near Rua da Felicidade. Milky products are their forte since diary are fresh from their own ranch. The best sellers are the sheung pei nai, sweetened steamed milk pudding with two skins and the geung jap chuk nai, boiled milk with ginger juice.

Sheung pei nai is one very famous dessert of the Shuntu region. It is first steamed with the bowl half full, leave cold and then topped with another half by milk and steamed again, creating two layers of milk pudding in the very same bowl.

If you are craving some Cantonese sweetened cream soups of Macau on top of this pudding thingy, like Chaxiubao did, you may want to head to this shop: Hang Heung Un. They are all the rage for their hang yen cha, sweetened almond tea as well as their hap tou wu, sweetened walnut cream soup. The name suggests this shop is a garden oozing with the scent of almond. You can mix and match their almond tea or walnut cream soup with whatever ingredients (several scores of them) you want, like coconut juice, egg white, a multitude of Chinese nuts and the sweet dumplings as well.

Pictured here is a bowl of sweetened almond tea with egg white and lily buds.

If you are on a whim for some ice cream of Macau after all those hotties, like Chaxiubao did, you may want to have a chill in this shop: Valetina Comidas near Rua do Cunha. Though it claims itself a bakery, it's the shop's housemade ice cream that really brought it to fame. Of particular interest, the best seller is the durian ice cream (caveat emptor, don't say you're not forewarned -- it's a very aquired taste). It is said that they only use the best grade of durian available: the Monthong (what we call "Golden Pillow" in Chinese).

Chaxiubao's Foodyssey in Macau: The Pork Chop Burger

Feb 11, 2005

What are all these people, hundreds of them, doing here? Well, these gastronomic refugees here are waiting to buy purportedly the most famous bun of Macau -- the Pork Chop Burger of Cafe Tai Lei Loi Kee -- one for all and all for one. The ritual starts every afternoon at 1500 hours sharp and freezes at exactly the moment when the buns are sold out, which usually means less than one hour later.

So well-known is this pork chop burger that this cafe becomes a landmark of Macau. Believe it or not, some foodies actually come to Macau solely for this burger in a hit-and-run manner. Point in check: when was the last time you remember seeing a bus stop named after a cafe, or seeing a government's tourist office has a cafe highlighted on its maps for sight-seeing? Some eye-opening sight it is, isn't it?

Trivia one: on this very day, Chaxiubao, one member of these gastromomic refugees, used a stopwatch to mark this mediocrity very meaningful occasion. He joined the queue circa 1445 hours and walked away with a pork chop burger in a victorious mood circa 1530 hours.

Trivia two: Do you know Salvotor Rosa and his work "Battille heroique?" The work itself is no doubt a masterpiece. What's tragic for the work is that it is placed in a wrong place 400 years after its creation: the left hand side of a painting called Monna Lisa in the Louvre -- drew by -- you know who. Well, some sort of empathy must have developed between the owner/chef of this restaurant called Sun Lung Kee (on the left hand side of the cafe selling the bun) and Mr. Rosa in the grave. While his counterpart's store has clientele snaked up outside every afternoon, come rain or come shine, Sun Lung Kee has hardly a shadow traceable inside.