Macau Chow-down Part 3

Rise and Shine early in Macau! This famous egg tart shop is just opposite our hotel. Somehow it has two names : Margaret's Cafe or Cafe e Nata. We were there so early there was barely a crowd yet.

Only one word describes the taste : PERFECT! This is, without doubt, the best egg tart i've had in my life. The crust was very crispy, very flaky and melts in your mouth. The custard was not too sweet, not too bland. Thumbs up!

After having the great egg tart, we walked back to Senado Square. There is a wet market in one of the back alleys, and in this market is this well-known coffee stall, 胜记咖啡 ( Seng Kei Coffee). They are renowned for their coffee, which is prepared in a Crock Pot.

We ordered a cup of coffee and a cup of Yin Yang to the shared among us. It didn't live up to my expectation of good coffee, though.

Believe it or not, our THIRD breakfast stop in a span of an hour is 义顺牛奶公司 ( Leitaria I Son). This place is a competitor of the Australian Dairy Company we had earlier in HK.

A butter toast to kick off our meal here. Never mind that a cockroach dashed across our table top 2 minutes before this picture was taken. The toast was crunchy and the butter very fragrant.

What's a trip to Macau without Pork Chop Bun? It is not too oily. Actually it was pretty good. Recommended to anyone who would like to visit Macau.

And lastly, their specialty is 红豆双皮炖奶 Double Layer Milk pudding topped with red beans. Their red bean tasted a little different. It was actually pasty and powdery, a great match for the pudding. If you look closely at the bowl nearest to the camera, you'll notice that it was two layers of pudding on the surface, hence the name.

Zoo Excursion

My favourite place for a day-trip in Singapore? The Zoo! I fell in love with this place the first time i set foot there back in 1998. Even the novelty of the Night Safari is not able to compete.

Here's the white tiger. There are the three of them, so near to us that only a small valley separates the cats and the tourists. I think they were hungry and wanted to eat us, cos they were pacing around just like Frosty does when he's ready to prance.

Look at this talented elephant, who happened to be completing a painting when we visited.

Ahhh...my best friends in the zoo : Inuka and Sheba!! Again and again the zookeeper has explained to us that polar bears are actually grey. They only appear white in photos of them due to the reflection of the snow. Well, that's what i learnt at the zoo, anyway.

This is a crazy new exhibit! They put a huge plexiglass between the visitors and about 80 baboons! 80!!!! Look at this photo and multiply by 10... all the baboons were so active, they were picking things up from the floor and putting them into their mouths...some were battling each other and some were staring at us.

This boat ride is a new attraction in the zoo, and started its operation in October 2008. Visitors are given a chance to float about on Seletar Reservoir and watch animal in the comforts of the boat.

I caught a few Orangutan feeding sessions. Here's one of my friends, enjoying a piece of watermelon perched on his favourite tree.

小草

Hello! As you all should know by now, my name is QQ. For some reasons, my owners were bored and decided to braid my EARS... My daddy said that i bore a strong resemblance to kingdom servants in the past, and so sis An An gave me a new name : 小草.

Heeheeheehee.... 小草 looked as if he was grinning at the camera....

Hmmm....when An An was young, her hair was tied up exactly the same way!

I bet QQ was trying to look cute to impress this cute girl, Baby! Baby stays in Melaka but if there's a chance they shall be introduced to each other. Imagine the cute babies they'll produce!

No Cookie Is 'SAFE' from Cookie Monster

Macau : The Sun Never Sets

After our long day, it was nightfall and boy oh boy, did Macau come alive?? We walked from our hotel to the casino area, and we were dazzled by the lights from the casinos.

This is one of the newer and more impressive ones - the Grand Lisboa. You can't tell from the pic, but the lights on the dome were actually moving and displaying different colours and images. It was so bright you practically feel like it's daylight.

Just a short walk away is Wynn. It's huge fountain in front of the building has a musical and fire show every half hour. Pretty impressive, with all the fireworks and the water being in-sync with music. Nice~

This is the lobby and it brings visitors to galleries and galleries of shops within. It has a long stretch of beautiful carpet just like this one all the way to the casino. I really wonder what's the obsession with all these casinos, they must be adorned so elaborately, sometimes to the point of being gaudy. Nevertheless, i must admit that Wynn is decorated with class.

The same cannot be said for this ceiling deep within Wynn. This golden ceiling depicts the 12 animals in the Chinese calendar. This ceiling is the main attraction in a show in Wynn. This celing opens up every 15 minutes, a needle comes out from on top. At the same time, a golden tree rises from below the floor and all the people watching this show will throw coins at the tree for good luck. What a cheap trick to earn money! Haha....

Macau Chow-down Part 2

After our excursion to the Venetian, we walked to the nearby food haven, Taipa Village. It is basically a street filled with small shops selling Macau street food. One of the famous souvenir food shop in Macau is Koi Kei, famous for their almond biscuits and bak kwa. My friends bought a big packet of pepper BBQ meat.

Unlike most BBQ meat, the shop uses the whole meat, without mincing them. Yes, the meat is slightly on the tough side, but still very tasty and great to munch on. We finished the whole packet on the spot!

Just near Taipa Village is a famed shop, 新好利咖啡饼店 ( San Hou Lei Bakery ). They are famous for their Pork Chop Bun , Egg Tarts and Bird Nest Tarts.

We got a couple of Bird Nest Tarts to try it out. They were fresh out of the oven and were piping hot still!

Unfortunately, they had run out of buns, so we got the Pork Chop Sandwich instead. Its pork chop was a little fat. Unknown to us then, we'll be tasting a better Pork Chop Bun the following morning.

What would a trip to Macau be without sampling their famous Macanese food ( Portuguese fusion). Alorcha Restaurant happens to be the most famous in the island. We saw many patrons turned away at the door due to it being fully booked. Thank god we were smart enough to reserve weeks before.

One famous Macanese dish is the Grilled African Chicken. The chicken is served with a tangy, sour sauce which did not fail to whet our appetite, even though we were already stuffed from all the snacks we had all day long.

This is mixed seafood rice, which due to its wet appearance, tasted and looked like the Italian Risotto. The sauce was flavourful and the rice fragrant. Overall a very very good dish.

This is what the Macanese call the Bacalhau Fritters, or fried codfish fritters. It was very salty and made me really thirsty. It was flavourful, but i wished the chef had been a little light on the salt.

Ahhh...Lemon Coke.... a Hong Kong and Macau specialty. It tasted a little odd at first, but i soon got used to the flavour.

Macau : Asia or Europe?

After lunch, we promptly checked into our hotel. We hopped onto a shuttle bus to the ferry terminal, followed by another bus to Venetian. To get to the Venetian, we had to cross the bridge from main Macau to Taipa.

The Venetian was built as identical to Venice as possible. Sixian, who just recently came back from Venice, said that the real deal is much dirtier and uglier, but the original has a 'feel' that cannot be transferred here. Also, the water is brown in Venice, not blue like in the Venetian.

Wow, i love the ceiling, although it is not the original painting. These are things that i love, i think i'll love Italy.

This is at the entrance of the Venetian Hotel...anyway, the moment my boss saw this photo, her question to me was : WHY IS THE GUY 'WEARING A GREEN HAT'? ( in the Chinese context, it means that his wife is cheating on him ). Ahh...naughty, naughty~

This is the Venetian from afar, taken from Hard Rock Cafe right opposite. My friend had to buy a souvenir T-shirt from Hard Rock Cafe, but after walking there, we realised that the shop no longer carries the signature tee. Gah....

While killing time before our dinner reservation, we alighted from our shuttle bus at Sands. Right opposite Sands is Macau Fisherman's Wharf. It is a big theme-park, fringed by fake landmarks and European fake buildings. We walked through the wharf once and the time was just right to go for dinner.

They tried to make the buildings within the wharf colourful, with a Mediterranean feel. It was very pretty, although a little fake.

This is a nice building, totally like those i saw in Europe! Macau is a great place, if you adore Europe...kinda like a cheaper alternative.

This photo turned out a little blurry and eerie. On the cab during our ride to the restaurant, we passed by the Kun Iam statue situated at the pier, so i quickly snapped this photo.

Macau Chow-down Part 1

On the morning we were headed to Macau, we actually had breakfast at China HongKong City before boarding the ferry to Macau. We ate at Mak's Noodle, one of the famous noodle franchise in HK.

It was breakfast time, so my wonton noodle was a mini bowl size. My friends were griping about how small the bowl was. You can't really tell from this photo, but this bowl is actually the size of a rice bowl... really tiny, but perfect for small eaters.

After our very 'small' breakfast, we boarded a ferry to Macau. By the time we got to Senado Square, our tummies were rumbling again. We had our lunch at 黃枝記粥麵店, but had to queue for about 10 minutes due to good business.

This is wonton & beef brisket noodle ( Dry ). This noodle house is famous for their noodles, which are strictly handmade. They were awesome, machine-made ones are nowhere close in standard.

This is beef brisket and tendon noodles. The noodles are just as good even in soup. If you ever go there, do order any type of noodle dish, and you'll be satisfied. This shop also has outlets in Hong Kong. We ate it on our last day at the airport as well.

This is wonton noodle soup. Their wontons are fresh and you can see full-size shrimps in them. They really don't scrimp and save on the ingredients.

Lastly is the beef brisket and wonton noodle ( soup version ). Just the same as the dry version.

After lunch, we headed to Lemon Cello Gelato. It was a hot day, therefore perfect for a cooling dessert.

Oh my, they have so many choices we couldn't make up our minds. Everything was special!! Not just the normal boring Vanilla, Chocolate, strawberry....ughhh.... Hey, look how they decorate the gelato with the actual fruit? I thought that was a really nice touch!

This is their second display ( they have two gelato fridge ). Look closely to the far right, can you see they actually put a durian shell on the gelato?

Ahhh....my choices were Yakult, Chocolate Liquor and Mango Peach! Superrrrrr.....