The macau egg tart: a waste of eggs

Does Macau mean no ingrediants?

Restaurant Review!

Macau Restaurant l Tsim Sha Tsui l Kowloon

The thought has crossed my mind that people might feel that all I do is give positive reviews. What I may have neglected to mention is that many of the restaurants reviewed so far are places that I’ve visited before and of course want to enjoy while I'm here. As the blog progresses, I’m certain that things will change as I try new places. Let’s just be clear that I’m not some sort of restaurant whore, spineless and eager for the leash.

Although Hong Kong is considered to be a cosmopolitan city, it is also fairly homogenous and hence, it is shockingly difficult to fine some authentic food. I had a discussion with a coworker where I had to explain that the Japanese food here is total shit and she looked at me incredulously. People here love Japanese food but much like everything else here, I often find it has a Chinese taste which I find absolutely infuriating.

Case in point: Macau Restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui. This place gets big write ups in the local newspaper and is perennially busy. The curried beef was practically flavorless, the Portuguese buns were so soft as to be cake-like (which is considered the height of baking here), the Macau fried rice had a poverty of ingredients and the Ong Choy (A Chinese vegetable akin to a hollow stemmed spinach) in Macanese spices tasted like the same dish served in thousands of Cantonese restaurants around the world. The only thing that was added was some spiced dry shrimp which was apparently the summation of all that Macau had to offer.

I guess that this sort of thing occurs around world. You need to dumb down flavors so that locals will be more likely to be accepting of the food. I see this sort of thing all the time and it always makes me think of that movie “Big Night” where an Italian restaurant goes under for being ahead of its time. There is always an education process involved with unfamiliar food. I just hope Vancouverites realize just how good and inexpensive their Japanese and Chinese food is, and I’m not talking about Hon’s either.

Needless to say, I had to visit the lady with the shiny cart in the Choi Hung MTR station to get over the disappointment.