QUITE expectedly, Macau is overflowing with Chinese restaurants that serve authentic and excellent Chinese cuisine.

In this city, Chinese menus are long and comprehensive, some of them with English translations, but they all have favorite staples such as Peking duck, sweet and sour pork, steamed fish, bean curd prepared in various ways, and meat with vegetables.

During one lunch time, our group went to Lua Azul or Blue Moon, a Chinese restaurant located in Macau Tower which is well-known for its dim sum and brilliant culinary recipes from the traditional royal court. Apart from its contemporary and relaxing ambience, Lua Azul also teems with a unique blend of Huai Yang, Chiu Chow and Cantonese flavors.

Over at Lua Azul, our tour guide Alfredo ordered an assortment of the restaurant’s best dim sum such as shrimp dumplings, crab roes and meat dumplings, minced beef balls with bean curd skin and barbecue pork buns that were all steamed for us to feast on.

Alfredo also brought our group to one of his favorite restaurants called Wing Lei.

To start off our meal, a whole Beijing duck was brought in and then expertly sliced into thin pieces in front of us. With sheets of very thin steamed pancakes, barbecue sauce and traditional condiments, we prepared our own barbecued Beijing duck wraps as appetizer.

We were also served other starters such as long and thin spring rolls, abalone-filled mini pies and these sweet meat-filled siopao, the bread of which tasted a lot more like pan de sal.

After the appetizers we were served diced beef fillet sauteed with garlic and bell peppers, poached sea whelk topped with sizzling spring onion dressing and some fried rice loaded with crab and duck meat.

We finished off the meal with a ginataang halo-halo-tasting dessert that was actually hot pumpkin soup with corn and taro bits.

Macanese cuisine

Apart from all the Chinese cuisine, Macau also has Portuguese offerings such as wines, egg tarts and other traditional desserts.

And then there is the unique Macanese cuisine, which combines elements of Portuguese, Chinese, Indian and Malay cooking and uses spices such as turmeric, coconut milk, cinnamon and balichão.

In a place called Restaurante Litoral, the entrance of which always abounds with people waiting for a table, our group was able to taste a typical Macanese dish called African Chicken, which is chicken grilled in piri piri peppers.

Quite spicy and flavorful, the dish is reminiscent of chicken curry.

Here we also tasted pieces of salty and chewy roast Portuguese sausage, grilled cod fish with potato wedges and garlic chips, ox tail stewed with red wine, and stewed pork with shrimp paste, which is like a combination of binagoongan and adobo.

Street food

While restaurants have undoubtedly scrumptious food, some must-try ones aren’t located there and are found in the streets instead.

Apart from the Portuguese egg tarts and the pork chop buns favored by Hong Kong people, there are peanut candies, egg rolls and other pastries in places such as Taipa Island and along Rua de S. Paulo near the Ruins of St. Paul’s in Macau.

Even more amazing is how some snacks are cooked right in front of you and how products like roasted meat slices and the best-selling almond cakes are offered free for tasting.

So while you can’t take home the Peking Duck or the African Chicken, you can always grab some packs of peanut candy or boxes of almond cookies for the folks back home.

E-mail the author at ninomarksablan @yahoo.com