Margaret's Cafe e Nata
Margaret's Cafe e Nata is tucked away in an alley just behind the Grand Lisboa. It should be easy enough to spot, as there will be a huge crowd of tourists lining up to buy or taking pictures of their Portuguese egg tarts. In a town packed with Portuguese egg tart joints, they are known for having the tastiest. I've had egg tarts from at least 10 different places in Macau and all have them have been very good. But the egg tarts at Margaret's have an extra flaky crust that puts them over the top. The tarts are about $.80 each and go good with a cup of coffee or a soy milk.
I give it an 8/10
Restaurante Litoral
Litoral, a slightly upscale Macanese restaurant on the southern end of the Macau peninsula, is another Lonely Planet recommendation that I'd been wanting to try. I've tried a few Macanese restaurants in the past and hadn't been too impressed. Macanese fare is a lot like Portuguese, and a lot of the signature dishes tend to be very starchy and salty with sausages, potatoes, rice, and the like. At Litoral, we ordered the prawn curry with crab meat and the baked duck rice. The prawn curry tasted like a Southeast Asian curry, and came with a healthy portion of crab meat and quail eggs. It was decent enough, but unfortunately the flavor could not live up to the nuclear powered Indian curry I had eaten a couple days earlier at the Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong. The baked duck rice could be described as a casserole of flavored rice with a layer of baked duck meat on the bottom and with slices of Portuguese sausage on top. I grew up in Hawaii, where we love our Portuguese sausage so much that it's on the menu at McDonald's, but this Portuguese sausage was just way too salty. The rest of the dish was as I anticipated, very starchy and rich, even when eaten in conjunction with a garden salad. The two dishes plus a salad came to about $50.
If you are interested in trying Macanese food, this restaurant is supposedly as good as any and is just a 5 minute cab ride from the casino district. Certainly a lot more convenient than the also well-regarded Fernando's which is located on Coloane. But apparently Macanese food is just not my thing.
I'm going to have to give it a 5/10.
Macau Square Food Court
When staying in a city, I make it a priority to visit as many different restaurants as possible. But while in Macau, I often find myself returning to the Macau Square food court located on the third floor of the Macau Square shopping complex. Just to make it clear, food courts in Asia are not like food courts in the US. The concept is similar, a large communal dining area with a variety of small food vendors to choose from. But in Asia, the food vendors actually sell awesome freshly cooked meals rather than fast food chain crap. At the Macau Square food court, you can choose from a variety of local Cantonese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Singaporean, and Korean food. I've tried just about everything, and it ranges from good to excellent. My favorite food stand is called Soo's Kitchen, which sells rice noodles. A big heaping bowl of rice noodles in broth with pork innards along with an iced lemon tea goes for about $4. Way tastier than the stuff from the fancy noodle restaurants at the Wynn or Grand Lisboa, and at a fraction of the price. Make sure to pile on a bunch of chili peppers and assorted toppings for flavor!
I give it an 8/10.
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I'm half way in to my three day Yangtze River cruise. Three days on a riverboat tour packed with Chinese tourists and nothing to do is somehow not as fun as it looked in the brochures. Thank goodness for my iPhone and MyWi Internet tethering application, or I might have jumped off at the last dock. I'm looking forward to finally seeing the Three Gorges today!
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