Macau Food (part 1) - Taipa

In Macau, there are basically two places we need to go, i.e. the Taipa (sorry can't write the Chinese word, coz not a standard Chinese!) pronounced as Tam-Zai, and the Central or called Dai-San-Ba (大三巴). In Taipa, there are a couple of streets with famous Portugese foods. And the Seng Cheong (诚昌) porridge is one of the two food I can never forget in this trip.

Seng Cheong Crab Porridge (诚昌水蟹粥)
It is highly recommended by my HK friends. It wasn't in my original food list, but due to her high recommendations, we started with that. I was really glad we listened to her.


They cooked the porridge with crab that is full of cream/role/羔. The porridge looks yellowish with the roles mixed well.


We ordered the small one, but came so big, coz they cook it minimum with 1 crab. We also ordered their fried fish balls. When we first saw the food, we thought we would not be able to finish. But we were wrong! It was so tasty that we finished everything, and we didn't feel enough! OMG, I am never fond of eating porridge, but this one is just too tasty to forget. My sister and I keep talking about this again and again, checking with everyone who've been to Macau about this... It is just so, so, so tasty I don't know how else to describe it.

(just to show you how big the bowl is, and we finished them!)

The fried fish balls are quite unique too. It is to be eaten with the black vinegar. A good dish to go with the porridge.


We were there at 12noon, just right after they opened for business. Slightly later, the outlet was full with people waiting for a table!


新好利
Pronounced as San Hou Lei. Just a small outlet along the main street in Taipa, humble looking small coffee shop. It is famous for its Portugal Egg Tart. We knew from the book that it is also good for its Milk Tart. So we ordered both.


You must try the milk tart. It tastes so differently rom normal tart. In fact, their tarts' pastry is very soft and crispy, very fragile. We had to eat with care, otherwise they all spread out and you may end up holding nothing! The filling of the milk tart is similar to those that we had in steamed milk (双皮奶), like milk custard. Not too sweet, just nice.


And the Portugal tarts... at first I didnt' like it coz I hate my food burnt, and it has too many burnt marks on the surface. But then... after eating it, I realised that the taste of the egg tart is actually enhanced by those burnt smell. Not a healthy way of eating, once is enough, but worth to comment that it tastes different, better than those in KL!


Cafe Tai Lei Loi Kei (大利来记)
Here comes the (original) highlight of my Macau trip. Macau is famous for the pork chop bun (猪扒包). It is famous, mainly because of this cafe Tai Lei Loi Kei. And this cafe is famous, because (from hear-say) it uses wood to bake their buns. Yes, the bun is more famous than the pork chop. Due to environmental issues, this outlet looks like the only outlet has the license to operate with wood.

The freshly baked pork chop bun is only available at 3pm daily. Before 3pm, queue has already formed. We went on a non-peak day, but it has no difference!


Dadadada! The long waited pork chop bun is here!


And... can you guess how disappointed I was? It wasn't tasty at all! The bun was very hard and dry. No gravy, just dry hard bun and a piece of dry pork chop. I felt like choked to death, trying to eat and swallow the bun. I don't think it is due to high expectation. It was just too dry. I saw people eating just like that, no gravy, no sauces. Wonder what makes it so famous! The one sold at Mid Valley in KL is even better. Maybe I am not good at food tasting, I guess.