Sushi in Macau

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It's been just over a year since I was last in Macau, which is a far cry from the days before the pandemic, when I made 10 trips in one particular year. Tonight I boarded the ferry for a sushi dinner in Macau - only the second time for me to have sushi in the other SAR. The invitation came from B Bestie on behalf of Sushi Kissho by Miyakawa (鮨 吉祥 宮川), which had just received their first Michelin star a few weeks ago. Chef Miyakawa Masaaki (宮川政明) is spending a few days in Macau to celebrate this occasion, so I happily accepted the invitation.

I'd never stepped foot in the Raffles at Galaxy Macau before, and in fact have only had one experience dining within Galaxy Macau before tonight. So... country bumpkin gets to see some serious bling!

Our first stop was at The Long Bar (but, of course...) for a quick drink before dinner. I was suitably impressed with the lineup of vinyl album sleeves on the wall just inside the entrance, with classic all-time favorites. And the playlist was a lot of classic rock, which was kinda surprising for the clientele in this city.

I should have waited until after the ladies had received recommendations from the staff, or at least until I had a look at the menu. That way I would have ended up ordering one of those girlie drinks I love so much. Instead, I acted like Pavlov's dog and raised my hand when the word "negroni" was mentioned. To be fair, this was a very good and smooth one, but still... I wish I had taken a signature girlie drink!

The best dishes I had in 2024

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2024 was a strange year for me. While the borders had been fully-open since late 2022, I went on a self-imposed travel ban for 6 months in the middle of this year, thereby missing out on a few amazing culinary trips my friends undertook. I told everyone that I was staying in town to support Hong Kong's economy, and I hope my chef and restauranteur friends appreciated that...

As I have done each year since 2016, I have compiled a list of dishes I've enjoyed during the year which were the most emotional experiences for me. There have been no shortage of delicious dishes over hundreds of meals, and making a concise list of the best of them remains a difficult task. So here they are in chronological order:

Sweet and sour pig tails (菠蘿咕嚕豬尾), from The Chairman (大班樓) in Hong Kong - as someone who loves pig tails and who also enjoys a good sweet and sour pork this combination proved insanely delicious. The light and airy batter was especially bewitching.

B's detour day 5: truffle all the way

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It's all Hairy Legs' fault.

While he was in Macau 4 days ago for the Michelin Guide ceremony, he stopped by Robuchon au Dôme for a meal, and Chef Julien Tongourien made him Oncle Joël's signature black truffle tart. Now, this is not something you see often, because 1) it's gotta be during truffle season, 2) the quality of the truffles must be sufficiently high to ensure enough pieces can be cut in the same shape, and 3) the food cost for this is so high that most of the L'Ateliers around the world simply can't make it work economically.

But this is au Dôme in the Grand Lisboa Macau, and if anyone could do it, it would be Julien. I quickly asked for a table for lunch today, and inquired whether it would be possible to have the truffle tart. I was happy that the answer to both questions were in the positive, and looked forward to getting my friends their first experience with it. I had prepped them beforehand about the whole series of chariots that would be pushed in front of us, and that's something that is not often seen outside of France and Europe.

The weather is completely crap today, and there is almost zero visibility from the windows, so I was perfectly happy being seated in the private room.

For lunch service, one can still choose among the 3-, 4-, or 5-course menu in addition to the full tasting menu, so we all opted for 4 courses since we also would have the extra course of the truffle tart. In fact, I was surprised my friend didn't choose the 3-course lunch. As for me, all of my choices today included black truffle... because it just felt like that kind of day.

As management very kindly provided us with a bottle of Champagne, there was no need to push the Champagne trolley to our table. This was a shame, because I really enjoy seeing the sight of that trolley.

Our first order today would be from the bread trolley. Paul pushed this into the room, and I gotta say this is still very beautiful to behold.

B's detour day 4: death by jasmine

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While I'm generally a creature of habit, I do occasionally try out new restaurants where I've received positive feedback from friends. This time around in Macau, I was determined to check out Imperial Court (金殿堂) at the MGM Macau. In my years of somewhat frequent visits to Macau, I had never once dined in one of the MGM casinos. In fact, I've never even stepped foot in either of the casinos. So this would be a first...

But the evening did not start well. The second I stepped foot into MGM Macau, my olfactory senses were overwhelmed by the house perfume that permeated every corner of the casino, including the restaurants. I love the scene of jasmine, but I don't want it shoved up my nose for the whole 2 hours or so. And certainly not while I'm dining or trying to enjoy a nice bottle of wine.

Once again I'm trying to be conservative when ordering, which was why I could't order up the sunflower chicken that Foursheets loves so much, because it only comes as a whole chicken. Oh well...

Our amuse bouche was a green pepper stuffed with cuttlefish mousse, which was very tender and nice.

B's detour day 4: birthday menagerie

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One of the places I really wanted to take my friend on her trip was The 8 (8餐廳), since it's one of my favorite restaurants when it comes to Cantonese food. We have not been able to get some dim sum for my friend so far, and this happens to be the perfect place to get that checked off. Nobody does dim sum like the way they do it here.

But first, I took us on a short sightseeing tour around Largo do Senado with its historic buildings, as it's part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Then we strolled around and made a stop at the Porthos Macau shop for some interesting almond cookies made with Porthos canned sardines.

After a few days of my eating program, I have been instructed to cut down on the ordering. This is pretty easy to do with dim sum, and I figured we could focus on the wines instead...

Abalone with celtuce stem

Blackberry and passion fruit jelly

Steamed dumplings with crystal blue shrimp in goldfish shape (藍天使蝦金魚餃) - BUT OF COURSE we would start our lunch with this! I've been loving these "goldfish" for years, and they continue to deliver. Lately they've added a dab of goldfoil on the dorsal fin.

B's detour day 3: the awakening

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One of the regrets this week is that I was unable to bring my friend to dine at Sichuan Moon (川江月), the restaurant which featured Sichuanese cuisine as imagined by chef André Chiang (江振誠). It was decided last year that the restaurant would close, and the space was taken over by Chef Tam Kwok Fung (譚國鋒) for the creation of Chef Tam's Seasons (譚卉) - a Cantonese restaurant where the dishes are based on the 24 seasons (二十四節氣) in the Chinese lunar calendar. The restaurant just earned its first Michelin star two days ago, so coming here gave me a perfect opportunity to congratulate Chef Tam in person.

We happen to be in the middle of jingzhe (驚蟄), the season when hibernating insects are awakened by the sound of thunder. While the restaurant has put together a set menu specific to this season, Chef Tam was always gonna brings us something special...

Steamed free-range chicken with scallion oil (蔥油葵園雞) - Chef Tam hits it out of the park on his first at bat. This is Foursheets' current favorite chicken, and I can't tell you how happy she was when this arrived. Wonderful stuff.

B's detour day 3: Macanese family-style

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One of the main items when I convinced B to make a detour to come visit me was a visit to Macau. While Hong Kong has always been a great destination, I've always felt that fine dining in Macau is a better deal - and it's easy to understand why. So I booked us a car to cross the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and, thanks to some unscheduled stops, checked in to the Grand Lisboa Palace more than an hour later than expected.

Which is how we arrived at La Famiglia on Taipa around 1½ hours later than the time of our original reservation. I had asked for recommendations for restaurants which are more Macanese and not just serving Portuguese cuisine, and I decided to check out this one.

Pastéis de bacalhau - these were pretty decent. On the dry side but still tasty.

Chamuças de porco - these samosas were also pretty decent.

The best dishes I had in 2023

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Another year of eating pretty well, now that we've been released from the shackles of the pandemic and resumed travel around the world. Revenge travel, it is called, and I've made no less than 6 trips to Taiwan just to see the Parental Units. Of course, there were other trips, too... and I finally made it outside of Asia towards the end of the year.

Once again I have compiled a list of dishes I've enjoyed during the year which drew the most emotional reactions from me. I've had many, many delicious dishes over hundreds of meals, and as always it is no easy task to pare the list down to a manageable number. The dishes were tasted in Hong Kong unless otherwise indicated.

Golden roast pigs from New Territories Farms (新界農場大金豬), from Red Seasons Aroma Restaurant (季季紅風味餐廳) - it had been four years since I was last able to taste this roast pork... where the pigs were roasted in underground ovens and the very crunchy crackling come with that beautiful smoky flavor. Just so, so happy to be able to enjoy this with friends again.

Bday in Macau 2023 day 2: long-awaited birthday dinner

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After more than 4 years, Foursheets is finally back at The 8 (8餐廳), her favorite Chinese restaurant in Macau. Due to the need to make special arrangements on wine for tonight, I made the reservation through our friend at the group, who told me in advance that Paul Lo, the Director of Food and Beverage at the Grand Lisboa, would be greeting us there. While I am certain that I am undeserving of Paul's time, it nevertheless gave me an opportunity to catch up with him and get a few important (to me, at least) questions answered.

Restaurant Manager Andrew Lo remembered me as the pain-in-the-ass who asked for a bunch of old German rieslings on my last visit - none of which could be retrieved from the cellars at the time - and who rebuffed his kind efforts to offer me alternatives from more recent vintages, because even 1993 isn't good enough "as I have stuff like that lying around at home"... Well, we didn't have any problems with getting the wine I wanted tonight as it had been very kindly retrieved by Paul and decanted by Andrew before our arrival.

I had expected to just order a few things off the menu for tonight, but Chef Albert Au (歐國強) - who still runs the kitchen despite someone telling me he has retired - had put together a menu for us. He was also on hand to greet us, and it's been quite some time since I last saw him.

Radish with Cristal blue prawn and mushroom (鮮蝦野菌白玉盞) - nice crunch in the radish, with good mushroom flavors and very tasty flavors from the New Caledonia blue prawns.

Abalone with celtuce stem (鮑魚萵筍)

Bday in Macau 2023 day 2: wandering in Taipa

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Foursheets woke up this morning and decided that she would like to take the breakfast at Mesa by José Aviliez. We are normally not the type of people who go for hotel breakfasts, especially when we know where to get tasty alternatives. But this is her birthday and I am happy to do as she wishes.

It's a semi-buffet style breakfast, where we are offered a "main course" we can order. I take an omelet that comes with a pre-set number of fillings, plus a hashbrown and some almost-burnt bacon on the side.

Bday in Macau 2023 day 1: living the suite life

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It's Foursheets' birthday this weekend, and she has decided that she wants to spend it in Macau this year. While I have already made 3, albeit short, trips across, it has been 4 years since her last trip. So I contacted our friend to make some special arrangements, only to have her insist on arranging the accommodation for us. We're so grateful for her kindness, because it is really going to make this a special weekend.

I was already getting excited on our way to catch the ferry. A friend had very kindly helped me buy the very special Nissin Cup Noodle laundry bag and carried it back for me, in time for me to use it as our weekender bag. I was getting some looks at the terminal, and eventually the bag got its own seat on the ferry.

Back to the menagerie

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An online acquaintance is spending a few days in Macau, revisiting top Cantonese restaurants there after borders re-opened this year. I decided to take this opportunity to meet up with him for the first time, finally putting a face to someone with whom I have many discussions over the years, but never in real life and in real-time.

It's been 4 years since I was last at The 8 (8餐廳), and I do miss their dim sum menagerie... so I agreed to come for lunch. My friend had already visited the restaurant a few days ago for dinner and had gotten a few other dishes ticked off his list, so we figured we could just focus on dim sum.

Pomegranate and coconut jelly - I had to verify with a second staff member whether the top part was pomegranate (石榴) or guava (番石榴), as it certainly tasted like the latter to me... but was told that it was indeed pomegranate. 

Go Goh Macau

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While having lunch together yesterday, NC Chung and I found out that Tigger was gonna be home alone today, kind of. While both Tigger and I ignored our friend's earlier suggestion of a boys' trip to Macau, driving across the bridge now suddenly seemed like a great idea. The boys were opening joking about the next instalment of The Hangover...

After the decision was made to come to Macau for dinner tonight, I was scratching my head about where we should dine. Suddenly I remembered that Goh-san was coming to Macau for an event, and in fact was flying in yesterday. I began to message him as well as the PR team at Wynn to see whether it would be possible for the three of us to join the event. Well... we could not be seated with the private group of media and KOLs since we are nobodies, but Chef Tam was kind enough to arrange a table for us along with a menu. I was happy at the prospect of seeing Goh-san a couple of days early, and of course I haven't seen Chef Tam Kwok Fung (譚國鋒) in more than 4 years - which is far, far too long.

So we met up this afternoon, hopped into NC Chung's car, and let our zero-star Uber driver take us to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Frontier Point. After parking the car, we went through the empty immigration hall and hopped into a taxi, heading for our destination - Wynn Palace Cotai.

It's been years since Tigger was last in Macau, so we spent a little time walking about the shops and casino, trying to guage the level of economic activity and tourist spending. There were certainly a lot of people roaming the halls of the shopping small, and a reasonable number of people betting at the tables.

We had arrived in Macau far too early and were led to believe that the kitchen wasn't ready for us, so we decided to park ourselves at Wing Lei Bar. As soon as I walked up to the door I saw a few of the KOLs who would be attending the special 4-hands dinner with Chef Tam and Goh-san. In fact, we interrupted RAW Yeah's solo drinking session by sitting down with him and ordering drinks for ourselves...

Citrine sphere - with banana liqueur and coconut liqueur along with a base of dark rum.

An afternoon in the garden

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My morning started with a late breakfast. I should have had this breakfast earlier, but erroneous information online put the opening times of Sei Kee Cafe (世紀咖啡快餐) in Nam Van (南灣) at 90 minutes later than when it actually opened.

I'm here for one thing - egg and luncheon meat on toast (午餐肉厚蛋多士). Having tasted this beautiful sandwich with its thick slab of luncheon meat along with a thick yet fluffy omelette, I just had to come back for it at the first chance I got. Who cares if lunch is in 90 minutes?!

And I still liked the clay pot coffee (燒瓦煲咖啡).

Michelin HK / Macau 2023: my 2 cents

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It has been many, many years since I last wrote a post to comment on the Rubberman and the annual award of the macarons. I used to point out what I considered to be "anomalies" in the first few editions, but got tired of it. After all, I'm a nobody and who gives a shit about what I think when the mighty Red Guide has been in existence for over 100 years?!

As I attended the announcement in person this year for the first time, instead of watching a livestream or waiting for the PR blurb after the fact, things felt a little different. A few restaurants and their chefs, with whom I have a deeper connection, have received what I and many others felt were long-overdue recognitions. I figured I would add my two cents' worth.

The biggest news of the day was undoubtedly the elevation of a restaurant to the pantheon of 3 macarons. This is a big deal. Looking at Rubberman's website, there are just 140 restaurants in the world which holds the distinction. So it's a very, very exclusive club.

Michelin HK / Macau 2023: buffet, gala, and supper

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After holding the revelation events online for the last few years during the pandemic, the Michelin Guide is once again making the announcements for the Hong Kong and Macau Red Guide in person. The title sponsor for this year has changed to the Grand Lisboa Palace Resort Macau, which has very kindly made all the arrangements for us. I got up bright and early this morning and headed to the Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal to catch the ferry to Macau.

But first, traditions are traditions. I stopped by McDonald's at the terminal to buy breakfast for my ferry ride. Sausage McMuffin is just what I needed.

The best dishes I had in 2019

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It's been a busy year at work, thanks to me changing jobs at the start of the year.  I definitely did not take as many holidays as I had planned, and in fact I ended up eating out less altogether.  That being said, I still found plenty of opportunities to pig out all over the world.

As in previous years, I have put together a list of the dishes which I thought were "the best", in the sense that they elicited the most amount of positive emotions from me.  They are listed in chronological order here:

Deep-fried garoupa filet (吉列老虎班球), from The Sports Club (五陵會), Hong Kong - there's something about battered and deep-fried fish, and this was probably the best version I've ever had.  I was totally amazed that something like this could be executed at this level... with light and crispy batter enveloping very fluffy and soft fish.  And that starchy egg drop and corn sauce was beautiful.

Braised stuffed sea cucumber (海參鑲肉), from mom - OK, so I'll never grow tired of eating this dish from mom.  Soft and wobbly sea cucumber stuffed with minced pork.  I'm so lucky that mom is a wonderful cook.

A perfect Saturday lunch

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Hello Kitty was spending a couple of days wining and dining with the girls in Macau.  I was too busy at work to join her, but I figured I could possibly join her for a meal on Saturday.  Boss Jonas had pinged me to invite me over for a meal, and generously chose to extend the invitation to the whole party.

After failing to catch Kwuntau (罐頭) at Loja das Conservas Macau, Hello Kitty and I arrived early at Robuchon au Dôme.  I can't believe it's been a year since my last meal here.

Chef Julien Tongourian came over to greet us and also asked what we wanted for lunch.  While Hello Kitty and I are pretty easy-going, we immediately said "No" to the suggestion of beetroot... It is, after all, one of the very few things we don't eat.  He asked whether we wanted "light, or good"... which led me to ask him whether those two options are mutually exclusive.  I don't think he really wanted to answer that question...

Crispy waffle with scampi and sea urchin - always happy to start with these... A classic that I never tire of.

Macau quickie: the filling Moon

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With just three hours between our long lunch and dinner, I needed to walk around a little to kill time.  Thankfully there is an art exhibit entitled "Garden of Earthy Delights" at the Wynn Resorts, so we crossed the road and headed to Wynn Palace Cotai.

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A post shared by Diary of a Growing Boy (@growing_boy) on Aug 11, 2019 at 8:40am PDT

There had been plenty of posts by "influencers/KOLs" on Instagram of the pieces here, and most of them have been focused on just one piece - Refik Anadol's "Melting Memories".  Of course, lots of people - yours truly included - were here trying to capture the mesmerizing transformations in pictures and on video.  There were only plenty of IG hoes who inserted themselves into the pictures pretending to be cultured.

While Refik Andol's pieces were undoubtedly interesting, for me the more striking work was actually Edoardo Tresoldi's "Sacral".

I joined Hello Kitty on her shopping tour to kill more time, but we got tired of walking in circles around the corridors with our luggage... so we arrived at Sichuan Moon (川江月) about 20 minutes before the appointed time and parked our bags at the table.

Macau quickie: another 3-hour lunch

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I woke up early this morning, even though I was sleeping in a large and comfortable bed in a hotel.  Surprisingly my stomach growled at this early hour.  Loudly.  This was puzzling given the dinner we had last night.  But perhaps because we didn't have any carbs, the meal wasn't as filling as I expected.

It was past 10 a.m. when we headed to Sei Kee Cafe (世紀咖啡快餐) in Nam Van (南灣).  Ever since my friend KC recommended it, Hello Kitty and I have wanted to come and try the signature sandwich.  But since this place only opens at 10 a.m. on a Saturday and closes on Sundays, and we always have big meals whenever we come, it's just never been in the cards.  Until today.  Today I needed this sandwich, come hell or high water.

So the two of us took one order of egg and luncheon meat on toast (午餐肉厚蛋多士).  After all, we were less than 2 hours away from starting lunch.