Friday, June 01, 2007

Macau Street Restaurant - Guangzhou

My buddy B came into Guangzhou with me a couple of days ago from JKT. It was great not having to come back to an empty apartment on my own after spending a week with the family. He is only spending the weekend here but we are planning to shake things up as much as possible. So far things have been great but now Friday is upon us and it is time to represent. I am doing liver crunches as we speak. So yesterday we went out for lunch to Macau Street Restaurant which is located just around the corner from the infamous Garden Hotel. That area is really lively after dark and don’t think I have ever ventured out there during the day. But I was bored with all the regular food around where I live.


We were both really hungry and a bit hung over from the night before. I am sure there are numerous other places we could have found to eat, as a matter of fact Bellagio, which is located directly underneath Macau Street, is actually renowned for its palatable selection of Cantonese food. But both of us were in the mood for something a bit different. We walked around for a while and the only place that really stood out from the others was Macau Street so we dived in. There are about 10 shops and restaurants on the street level of the block we were on. The Macau Street Restaurant is located on the second level and the area of the dining area is about as long as the entire block. The place does not look that big from the outside but it is. Décor wise, it was very standard, a little more colorful than your run of the mill Chinese joint here, but noticeably clean and organized. Although I have been to Macau more than once, I have not really had a chance to savor much of their cuisine. Having once been a Portuguese colony I would assume it would have some Lisboan influences. Also based on Macau’s geographical location it might be safe to assume that their seafood dishes would me of the hook. The menu at Macau Street Restaurant was overwhelming. The first good thing is that it was bilingual, meaning the items were listed in English and Chinese, and they had pictures of most of the items in the menu. And they all looked delicious. Unfortunately being only 2 people we could not order everything that tickled our senses. We had to settle for only 2 dishes. The first was a plate of BBQ pork. Each tender piece was grilled to perfection and it totally melted in my mouth. The pieces all had piece of fat and a piece of meat that blended together in perfect harmony. The marinade had seeped well into every crevasse and pore of the meat. With a little chilli paste this puppy went down.



To back up the BBQ pork we ordered this Macanese Prawn Curry. Strange? I also found it weird that they had so many curry items on the menu and I wondered why Macau would have such a strong Indian influence. But then as every well travelled person will tell you, we Indians are everywhere because we have been around forever. Everyone knows that the Indus valley was the birthplace of civilization of man-kind, PERIOD. This may sound like an obnoxious statement now but let me explain it to you. You see one day in Bali a Chinese friend of mine and an Italian friend got into a heated debate about who invented the noodle/pasta. Did Marco Polo introduce spaghetti to the Chinese when he came here or did he carry back some noodles on his return voyage Italy? Both parties were equally passionate and determined to prove their point. They kept trying to ‘one up’ each other until I finally had to silence them by informing them it was irrelative. It does not matter who invented the noodle or the wheel or even discovered fire because WE INDIANS INVENTED SEX! That’s right. If it was not for us there would be no one else around to invent or create anything. Everyone knows about Kamasutra and Tantric sex, because we invented it. That is also why we have one of the largest populations in the world, because we have been doing it so damn long. Then why is it that the Chinese have a larger population you might wonder, as my close friend did, trying to claim the fame for his race. The answer is obvious; they have been experts at duplicating other people’s technologies and going into mass production for so long that it was inevitable! But we Indians still have sex perfected to an art.



So I think I lost focus regarding the direction of this post for a while there. But food and sex are closely related subjects. And the food at Macau Street Restaurant was superb and unique. But not as good as sex. Once again it may not be the cheapest Macanese option available but it is easy to find, simple to place your order and the service is prompt. I will surly like to experiment with their dishes more in the future.

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