Thanksgiving in Macau

Without an oven and many critical ingredients for the usual spread (e.g. cranberries), what are some hungry Americans supposed to do on Thanksgiving? The answer: eat out! Thanks to a tip from another expat, Austin/Susan/Mari/Brian/Carlos/I ended up at the Rossio restaurant in the MGM last night, where they had a huge Thanksgiving special: all-you-can-eat buffet for 268 MOP per person, plus 10% service charge. The restaurant was open from 6-11 PM and we made sure to get our money's worth.


As you can see above, the restaurant itself was quite nice, with soothing beige/gray color palette, running waterfalls over glass, a big open kitchen in the middle and decorations of squashes/gourds on many of the tables. Service was impressive - every time one of us got up to get a fresh plate, the old one would be whisked away, but they would also refold the napkin and place it neatly back on the table! However, what we were there for was the food (of course), and they didn't disappoint. When we made the reservations, we were already pretty excited about the menu, which read as follows:

Classic dishes:
- Roasted prime rib with red wine and horseradish sauce
- Whole roasted turkey with gravy and cranberry sauce
- Glazed holiday ham with applesauce and honey mustard
- Carrots braised in beet juice with honey and cumin
- Potato, corn, and crab gratin
- Turkey stuffing
- Braised collard greens with with apple/chestnut/sausage
- Braised sweet potatoes in apple cider
- Oysters casino
- Mustard-braised Brussel sprouts with smoked bacon lardons
- Garlic mashed potatoes
- Braised lamb shank stew
- Turkey pot pie

Sumptuous Desserts:
- Pumpkin pie with cinnamon cream
- Cranberry apple pie with walnut brindle ice cream
- Mississippi pecan pie
- Cherry pie
- Ginger Creme Brulee
- Baked banana cheesecake with caramelized pecans

What we found when we got there, however, was not only did they have all this, there was more! Seafood-on-ice bar, sushi and sashimi, pasta bar (fresh ravioli or fettuccini), freshly fried crabcakes, at least 5 kinds of salad, antipasta area, sliced meats like prosciutto, lots of fresh-cut fruit, and even more kinds of dessert than the menu had promised. Many mouthwatering photos below:
Carrots in beet juice, lamb shank stew, turkey pot pie

*gobble gobble*

We were puzzled by this at first, but it turned out to be Beef Wellington

Snow crab legs, yum!

More of the seafood bar (they also had clams and scallops)

Sushi bar
As I mentioned before, we stayed for a good three hours, carefully pacing ourselves and sampling a little bit of many dishes rather than eating a lot of any one thing. I had sushi, snow crab legs, crabcakes, asparagus/grapefruit/crab salad, turkey pot pie, mashed potatoes, carrots in beet juice, sliced prosciutto and other meats with rosemary/pumpkin seed lavash, and a bunch of different desserts. It wasn't just all eating - we went around the table to say what we were grateful for, and Susan/I even managed to get some grading done while taking a break from the food =P
Salads galore

Half of the antipasta spread (the figs were sooo good)

Fruit bar

This photo only shows about 20% of the available desserts...they kept rotating them out

Crabcake with green apple/celery garnish

My desserts: blueberry cheesecake, chocolate/raspberry jam tartlets, pear/almond/blueberry tart, and baked pineapple with cinnamon/palm sugar

Also, crepe with (rapidly melting) banana ice cream, bananas foster, chocolate topping, and candied pecans
After dinner, Susan and I staggered home to work on grading and the others went home to Taipa, but we all agreed that the buffet had been worth the (admittedly high) price. If you went to a buffet like this in America, it would easily cost over $100 USD per person, but we ended up paying about 300 MOP each ($37.50 USD)...I easily got more than my money's worth from just the sushi/snow crab legs! Even better, we didn't have to cook or clean up! All in all, an excellent Thanksgiving feast =D

Calling the fashion police!

Something that I see on the way to work every day: at least nine wedding gown/fancy dress stores within a 15-minute walk's radius of my apartment. It was initially baffling why there are so many of these in such a small area, especially since there aren't many fancy-dress occasions for young people (e.g. Homecoming or high school proms) and there are often 2-3 of these stores together in a row. What we found out however, is that couples apparently love going to these stores to rent out a bunch of outfits, then going around shooting photos in various scenic spots. The couple doesn't even have to be engaged - they could do it just for fun - but it's pretty expensive so I imagine most people only do it if they're serious.

A couple going out on photo tour
(I've seen others photographing at Venetian, Grand Lisboa, and Senado)

What astounded me even more was the, uhh, vast range of styles. There are a few I actually wouldn't mind wearing, with simple, flowing lines and not too much ornamentation. For example, the red strapless dress (second from the left) in the picture below, or the navy blue v-neck gown (pardon the glare from the shop windows). For all photos, click to get a larger version if you wish to see the gowns in their "full glory" =P
Most of the dresses I've seen, however, would make even the most jaded bridesmaid cringe. It's not that the fabrics are cheap or slathered in sequins (although some are) - it's usually the style of the design and/or the unfortunate combination of bright colors that should never go together. I'm constantly reminded of Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, despising dresses with "weeds here, weeds there." He would be horrified at these...I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Wrapped in Romaine (lettuce)?

Country-girl calico

The second one (from L) isn't so bad, but the rest...

No peach, please.

Seafoam green bell skirt with ruffles *shudder*

No clue what this designer was thinking

How women wearing these would actually walk/dance without crashing into things (especially wearing high heels) I'm not sure, but that's a question for another day.

Mixing east and west: a tour of the MUST hospital

Yesterday afternoon, Susan and I went to tour the hospital at the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), where Brian and Mari teach English. While Macau doesn’t have a proper medical school, the hospital is associated with MUST’s Chinese medicine program, but it also offers Western medical treatments. We were invited by Dr. Morgan, the director of the Hope Clinic in Macau, who has also graciously allowed us to shadow a few times.

The first stop (and perhaps place of greatest interest) was the Chinese pharmacy, located right on the ground floor next to the Western one. While the room was gleamingly hygienic and scientific-looking, the contents of the drawers were straight out of an apothecary's shop.

Some of the rarer ingredients: snakeskin and centipedes

Dried lizards o_O

One of the interesting things about the pharmacy is that they try to make things more convenient for patients by pre-boiling the prescribed ingredients to make packets of dark, syrupy concentrate that the patients then take by the spoonful. From a prescription, the ingredients are tossed together on to a clean cheesecloth (this process seemed rather haphazard, involving handfuls rather than a graduated cylinder or electronic balance). The bundle is placed in a bag in a big metal urn with holes like a sieve, and the top is covered with more cheesecloth. In another room (that really smells like an apothecary's shop), the urns are placed inside glass containers which are filled with water. The whole outfit is then boiled for 1-3 hours to distill (presumably) the essences of the ingredients, which are decanted into jars or bags that are given to the patient. Scorpion soup, anyone?

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...

We continued the tour upstairs where there is a traditional Chinese medical clinic that offers treatments such as acupuncture, cupping, moxibustion, etc. Again, the rooms had interesting juxtapositions: standard-issue hospital beds and a nice window view, but instead of a model skeleton in the corner, there was a small model on the desk showing the various chi lines and nodes. The stainless steel trays and individually-sealed packets followed standard hygienic protocol, but the trays held rows of glass domes and the packets had super-fine acupuncture needles of varying lengths.

For those who might dismiss all this as superstitious nonsense, consider the training that the Chinese doctors must go through, which is fairly comparable to what I'll be starting next year at NYU. The attending physician we spoke to had gone through five years of training, then since he wanted to practice in Macau, he had to work as a sort of intern/resident for 1-2 years before getting his official certification. Also, 5000+ years of observation must have come up with some sort of insights and semi-effective treatment, otherwise people wouldn't still be using it, right?

MUST is also trying to adapt traditional practices to Western ideals of "scientific medicine" through standardizing treatments and drug dosages, as well as introducing some fancy new machines, like this one, which is supposed to show which of the six major systems is out of balance based on measurements of surface temperature (e.g. on palms and feet), pulse rate, blood pressure, and a few other things. I'm a little skeptical about how accurate it can be, but they're trying, at least.

The third floor we visited was the research wing, mostly used for analyzing samples of traditional medicine to determine composition and purity. For example, if the medicine is supposed to be an aphrodisiac/increase potency, did someone just add Viagra to the pill? Again, there were many interesting juxtapositions - any biochemical lab would have been justifiably proud of the state-of-the art equipment (e.g. mass chromatography machines), but the substances they were testing ranged from bits of dried leaves to pungent black liquid. Our tour guide, one of the researchers, mentioned that they were also trying to get approval for clinic trials on the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine for treating H1N1 cases, though I'm not sure if that ever got off the ground because they were planning to use MUST students as subjects, making the ethics a little murky.

Anyway, the whole tour was quite intriguing, and it helped me fulfill one of my original Fulbright side project goals of learning more about Chinese medicine. Although I still don't know enough to help me in seeing patients, e.g. figuring out what herbs a little old lady has been taking for arthritis that might interact with her other prescriptions, it was a good place to start.

Top Restaurant + Food Festival

This past Friday, Susan/Mari/Sam/Emily/Amy/I went to see "The Top Restaurant," a play staged by the Beijing People's Art Theater (BPAT) at the Macau Cultural Center (MCC). The Chinese name is "天下第一樓" literally meaning "the first floor under the sky," though that may be a metaphorical description for something else in the play that I didn't get. The description on the Macau Cultural Center website said that the play

"is centered on a famous Beijing duck restaurant: the owner is retiring, and his bickering sons are unable to assume their father's role as restaurant manager. Eventually, he finds an outsider that is perfect for the part - he is talented, sharp, and manages to tackle the restaurant's problems. Ten years pass and the business' prestige and wealth grows, but now the two quarreling sons want a piece of the pie..."

From this description, we thought it would be a drama-comedy, but it turned out to be more of a drama/tragedy, with a rather abrupt, anti-climatic ending (I won't say what happens). The play was performed in Mandarin, but Susan and I agreed that we could only understand about half of it because of the antiquated language and the heavy Beijing accent the actors used (of course, since the play is set in early 1900s Beijing). Imagine watching Shakespeare performed in Elizabethan English with a heavy Scottish accent, and you'll have some idea of how it was. Fortunately, there were Chinese and English subtitles (most of the Cantonese-speaking audience would have relied on these as well), so we were able to get the gist of the plot, if not the subtleties of the dialogue. Overall, it was a worthwhile investment of 3 hours and 96 MOP (yay for group discount!) to get a glimpse of Chinese drama beyond the Beijing Opera.

BPAT curtain call

Also this past weekend was the opening of the Ninth Macau International Food Festival, held in Nam Van Square near the Macau Tower. While all the vendors were local restaurants, food ranged the gamut from the usual Chinese/Portuguese to Malay/Japanese/Indian and even a little French/Italian for good measure. Each type of cuisine had its own area, making it easier to navigate and sample a bit of everything =D

Gate to the Food Festival

Because of the bitterly cold weather (ok, it was super-cold by Macau standards plus it was windy because we were close to the water), Austin/Susan/I mostly stuck to the hot foods (sorry LemonCello!) that could double as handwarmers. Examples below:

Massive scallion pancakes at the Taiwanese "Night Market"

Banana-chocolate crepe =D

'Allo? Vould you like to join me in zees varm baff?

Some less-fortunate crayfish comrades
(Austin tried some; I didn't.)

One of the crowd favorites was the roti stall, where a master maker whirled and spun cakes of dough into paper-thin sheets, upon which he might add egg, butter, or banana slices, depending on the order. They were basically like the pratas I had in Singapore, which only makes sense considering roti is a Malaysian food. I opted for roti telur (with egg, same as the Bentara appetizer for you Yalies), which also came with a tasty curry dipping sauce.

Spin, spin, spin!

Roti in various stages of completion

Overall, this food festival was much more satisfying than the little one in Three Lamps, so I will probably be back for another round next week when it's not so cold out =P

Darn you, dumplings

I haven't expressly talked about it before, but one of my favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Macau is this place, Peking Dumplings (missing a few vowels on the sign, but whatever):

It's convenient (just a block away from Senado), cheap (20 boiled dumplings cost 18 MOP, about $2.25 US), and pretty authentic - I've seen them hand-wrapping the dumplings and they even make their own fresh soy milk. Last week, I stopped by after work to get some take-out dumplings for dinner, and I decided to also get some non-cooked dumplings for later, figuring I could cook them at home for lunch the following day or something like that. Something to note that will become important for the following paragraphs: these dumplings were fresh-wrapped, never frozen, so I just put them in the fridge.

On my first attempt a few days ago, I just used a thin layer of hot oil in the pan (it's supposed to be a non-stick pan, but at this point I think the non-stick coating has worn off). The outsides crisped beautifully, they smelled and tasted delicious...but the inside filling wasn't fully cooked. I didn't realize this until I looked more closely at the last dumpling and saw some of the pork still looked pinkish, but by then I had already eaten six. Oops. In any case, I didn't get sick, so I figured I was ok.

My second attempt tonight also involved just oil, but I kept it at a lower heat, figuring that would help cook the insides more without charring the outsides. You would think that frying in hot oil for 10 minutes would cook just about anything, but nope, same problem. Lovely-looking crispy dumpling skins on the outside, stubbornly pink-ish filling inside. I even opened one up to check the inside, saw it was pink, and put it back in the pan, but the meat still didn't cook! I opened each of the six dumplings to check, but they were all like that, so I just ate the skin, scraping out the filling and setting it aside to separately cook more later.

Before my final attempt with the last five dumplings, I Googled "How to pan-fry dumplings" and the first few links all suggested the same thing: Fry until one side is golden, add water and steam for a few minutes, then finish frying until it's as crispy as you want it to be. This sounded somewhat like what I remember Mom doing at home (in a cast-iron pan), so I decided to give it a go.

The result? Perfectly golden, crispy outside, and...only slightly more cooked inside -_- Susan came to check on me and complimented how they looked on the plate, but then ran to get her camera so she could photograph me dissecting each dumpling and eventually frying the filling (which I should note is still slightly pinkish even though I know it's fully cooked). Seriously though, I don't understand why this is such a problem...I've made potstickers before just fine (my roommates from summer 2006 can vouch for this); these dumplings are very tasty when fried at the restaurant, and the point still remains that I was cooking them for over 10 minutes!

Gah. Maybe next time I'll just boil the heck out of them.

I know I've been MIA...

...but there's lots to come, I promise! A quick rundown:

1) Singapore part 2 (including mini-Yale reunion #2!)
2) Food: Brian and Mari's first time at hotpot, GRBs, SE Asian food carnival, spicy noodle shop and other favorite places
3) My own cooking attempts (Dumplings fail; beef + broccoli was ok!)
4) The necessity for fashion police in Macau =P
5) Ongoing events at the ELC/teaching fairy tales
6) Upcoming stuff: Macau Food Festival, Top Restaurant play

In the meantime, an encouraging sign (at the bottom of the stairs =P)

These are a few of our favorite...

Having just passed the three-month anniversary of our arrival in Macau, I thought I'd write some more about the places we like to go and the things we like to do...namely, the restaurants at which we like to eat. Many of these are hole-in-the-wall restaurants that don't really have English names, and we usually don't know the Chinese names, so we've just given them our own nicknames, which sometimes make our conversations sound rather strange to people who don't know what we're talking about.

1) The "phallic noodle shop" aka Fei Chai Nam Mei Sek (肥 仔文 美 食)
Eve introduced us to this little gem in Taipa during our first week - it's a great place to get some savory shrimp wonton noodles (they use real shrimp!), stir-fried beef and vegetables over rice, and they also make a pretty good bowl of congee. The price is a little more expensive than some other places, about 30 MOP (about $3.75 USD) for a dish, but the portions are generous and they always throw in a free bowl of soup. We recently found out that the restaurant itself is only open for dinner, but you can call in for lunchtime takeout.

You might be wondering, "So far this sounds pretty normal...why the name?" The answer:

*drum/cymbal crash*

2) "Place of deliciousness," aka Sun Yick
The nickname came from Brian, although the rest of us would agree. About three blocks from our apartment in the Costa area, this restaurant is an eatery that's very popular with the locals. The dishes here are more expensive, about 60-70 MOP each, but they're big because it's all family-style service, and the preparation/seasonings are top-notch. What makes it more fun is that all the names on the menu are rather metaphorical, so even Chinese customers tend to just point to the photos. For example, one dish says something like, "If you walk quickly, you'll get around the world." It's actually pig's feet.

Personal favorites include the 空 心 菜 tublers and the stir-fried beef dish shown below, as well as spiced pork chop chunks (排 骨) and the giant curry chicken bun (look on the menu hehe)

The metaphorical menu

Yumminess

3) Dumpling Town (which is the actual name)
Sadly, I realized I have no photos of the food from this place (yet), but that's because every time I've been, it's difficult to prevent people from attacking the plates long enough to take a snapshot =P Hidden in a back alley off Senado, this gem is a bit expensive (18 MOP for a plate of 4-8 dumplings), but the extensive variety of options makes it worthwhile. My personal favorite is definitely the "satay chicken dumpling," with its unusual triangular shape, tender bits of chicken, crunchy celery, and thick, savory gravy inside. Other recommendations: the steamed "carrot" haw gaw (the skin is just a bright orange, but there are whole shrimp inside) and fried chive dumplings...all of these go well with their freshly made soymilk =D

4) The "spicy noodle shop" (the Chinese name means something like "Crossing the Bridge")
Just earlier this week, Susan and I were going to take Austin to Dumpling Town, but unexpectedly found it closed. We wandered down the street and saw a lot of locals in a basement restaurant, so we decided to try it out. We all got massive bowls of noodles and meat, with varying levels of spice. On the menu (center bottom), they offer "little spice," "medium spice," "Szechuan spice," and a few other options including "extra spice" and "crazy spice." There is actually a sign in the restaurant that they are not responsible for what happens if you order the "crazy spice." Knowing my own limits, I got the "little spice," but Susan went for "medium spice" and Austin almost went the whole nine yards, going for "extra spice."

My bowl...

Austin looking rather rueful at his very, very red bowl

The menu

Even better, we found out this place was a chain, and there was a branch just a block from our apartment! I haven't been there yet, but Susan ended up getting takeout a few days later and I'm sure we'll be back at some point because a large bowl of spicy soup sounds like the perfect dinner to warm up on a chilly winter day!

So yeah, there are some of our favorite places (so far)...I'm sure I'll be adding more to this list in the future ;-)

SE Asia Food Carnival

This afternoon on the way home from dance class, I get a text from Amy about a food festival near the Three Lamps district. After a quick shower, I headed over to check out the dinner possibilities:

What I found initially didn't seem like much: a short street lined with yellow-and-red stalls selling fairly standard southeast Asian items like chicken/beef satay, but there were a few interesting options. I sampled a few things and bought some mixed veggie noodles to take home for dinner - here are a few of the highlights:

The (very crowded) street

Fried...stuff. I didn't try any of this, but it sure smelled tasty =P

Inasal - something like chicken satay, but more of a roast chicken texture, flavored with lemongrass

"Tea fruit soup," presuming I read the characters correctly

I walked around Three Lamps a bit more for grocery shopping (they have the cheapest fruit/vegetables, but the quality is more variable than Sanmiu), and thankfully I re-discovered what I jokingly call "The Steamery," because most of the goods are steamed rather than baked. The ELC director, Kim, introduced us to this place back in August during orientation, but Three Lamps is such a maze of alleyways that I've only been able to find it once on my own since then (this would be the second time). It's great because they make fresh man tou (the Chinese equivalent of white bread) and BBQ pork buns, but also red bean bun, shumai, sticky rice, and other yummy stuff.

While this food festival was a bit disappointing, I'm really looking forward to the Macau International Food Festival, set to start next week...keep an eye out for another report of deliciousness!