"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 callAlso 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 FestivalBecause 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
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