Day 3 on Tai Pa Island
Having spent the past two days on the Macau peninsula itself, we decided to spend our 3rd day on Tai Pa island. There were lots to see. We explored Tai Pa Village, a street littered with endless cafes and restaurants. We did more touristy stuff and explored the Macau house museum to catch glimpse of the lives of the rich and powerful of the past. And of course, we checked out the big hotels suchs as 4 seasons and Venetian, which the Venetian by the way, is very similar to our Marina Bay Sands Singapore.
At Tai Pa village for the food!
||Tai Pa Village||
Tai Pa village is basically streets of shophouses filled with different food cafes,restaurants and some old colonial buildings. One can finish walking the main street, "Rue Do Chunha" within 10minutes! So its not that long! Just that this village has a old historical charm to it. It makes you feel as if you are walking through a Chinese village of the past. The original plan was to try the highly raved about crispy pork chip noodles at Pu Kei. Unfortunately, it was closed on the day we walk past. We settled on our next best alternative, a chinese restaurant called "Seng Cheong" that is equally famous.
Saw most of the patrons eating their famous crab porridge, but since we already had crab porridge the previous day, we decided to give it a miss. Tried their other highly recommended dish - crispy frog leg.
The above picture doesn't do it justice but the frog was really crispy and chewy! It is much larger and fatter than the frog legs that are being served in Singapore. The cook was also able to bring out the juicy chewy texture of the frog muscle without overcooking it. A must try if you are coming to this place!!! My other dishes were rather normal, so I ain't gonna blog about it.
After lunch, we stopped by this really famous dessert store. Its called "Gelatina Mok Yi Kei". They serve a wide variety of cold desserts which was really awesome as the day was scorching hot. And guess what, they even serve durian ice cream! A definite delight for many Singaporeans.
So we couldn't just be eating and eating right..... had to do some sightseeing. And off we were to the Macau house museum which is a 15 minutes walk away from the Tai Pa village.
Tai Pa village
Rua Do Cunha, Macau, China
We had to walk on the cobbled stones and through the other old European buildings before getting to the house museum. I do have a thing for architecture. I really love the old charm these old buildings emit. Makes me feel like I'm in a fairytale of the past.
||Macau house museum||
So basically the house museum showcases how the rich Portuguese civil servants used to live in Macau. Their houses were huge with perks like a long bath, personal study room and living room to entertain guests. There's also a write-up about their lives, how the Portuguese married the locals and hence the fusion of Western and Chinese influences in their houses. An eye-opener if you are history buff wanting to know more about the unique culture of Macau before the casinos came into place.
House Museum
Avenida da Praia, Taipa, Macau
||Venetian||
We spent the later part of our afternoon at the Venetian as it was just a 5 minute cab ride away from the house museum. One of the biggest hotels in Macau, it was also one of the grandest with lots of activities for everyone.
The casino was oh man...so so so huge! There's even a 2nd floor platform for people to take a selfie of themselves with the 1st floor casino as the backdrop. I was quite impress with the attention to customer service. There were lots of waitresses walking around to serve drinks to customers (even for those not gambling). Thumbs up to the awesome service. Oh yes, have I told you guys that most of the casinos around macau serve free drinks! There was even one casino, Holiday Inn, which served porridge for supper! Cool huh, free food and drinks.
And just when I thought the casino was humongous, the shopping was even more unbelievable. There were tons and tons of shops that one could easily get lost along the alleyways. I particularly like that they also had high street shopping, not just those expensive branded goods shopping. Well you see, most of these 5 stars hotels in Macau had shopping BUT shops like Prada, LV, Chanel...you get my point? But the Venetian also had stores like Zara, Mango, Nike etc... so shopping was definitely more enjoyable here.
Venetian
Estrada da Baia de N. Senhora da Esperanca, Taipa / Cotai, Macau
||Dinner at Albergue 1601 Restaurant||
Towards the evening, I googled "the best portugese food in Macau" and Albergue 1601 ended up as one of the top results. Tried it for dinner and didn't regret it either.
Fresh garlic oysters topped with crispy batter. I like how the garlic and crispy batter mixed really well with the warm oysters.
Ox stew that had a very nice thin layered broth to it. I ended up drinking at least 1/4 of the broth, it was super duper tasty.
Macanese chicken cooked in sweet curry sauce. Awesome flavours emitted from the curry and the cut chicken bits were extremely tender.
If you would like to try a romantic restaurant serving high quality Portuguese food in a quiet setting, this is the place to go.
Albergue 1601 Restaurant
8 Calcada da lgreja de S. Lazaro, Macau China
Tel: 853 28361601
Next: Shopping in Shenzhen