Streets along Ruins of St Paul's, Macau 大三巴

When you are in Macau, there is a famous landmark which you must visit - Ruins of St Paul's (大三巴牌坊). Originally the Cathedral of St Paul, it was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon in 1835. What is left now is the stone facade,  and it is officially enlisted as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Macau in 2005. 

Free shuttle service to San Ma Lo (新馬路) which stops outside Metropole Hotel (京都酒店), a 5 minute walking distance to Senado Square is provided by Galaxy Macau. From Senado Square, there are many shops lined up with local delicacies and souvenirs on your way to the Ruins of St Paul's. 

We passed by St Dominic's Church (玫瑰聖母堂), another Catholic Church which is also part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Macau. 

Old style grocery store 雜貨店

Preserved meats 臘味 are still very popular in Hong Kong and Macau

You can't escape from the clutches of Casino, even in a historical area. Grand Lisboa is just within your sight!  

In these metal containers are sweet desserts such as sesame paste, sweet potato dessert, and also savoury items such as artificial shark fin with chicken meat broth, pork and century egg congee & glutinous rice. Weird combination of stuff they sell.

Macau is famous for their pork chop buns (豬扒包). The buns are normally soft baguette filled with a slice of pork chop (with bone). Just along the streets around Senado Square and Ruins of St Paul's, you can find lots of shops selling them. 

Shop no.1 - they are using the huge baguette bun as a gimmick. This shop sells theirs at MOP17 a piece.

Shop no. 2 - this shop has many people queuing up for it, most probably because it is the cheapest. One for RMB10 or MOP/HKD13. However, on closer look, seems like the people are queuing for bubble tea instead...

Shop no. 3 :  大聖豬扒包. This one has a big banner hanging on top promoting their pork chop buns. Limited to 300 per day at MOP15 each.

On closer look, this shop has actually been featured in the popular Korean drama "Boys over Flowers" 《流星花园-花样男子》 where the female lead bought a Portuguese egg tart from this shop, loved it and bought a box of them. However she left her purse at the shop and...if you want to know more of what happened, come visit the shop as it replays the scenes over and over again. No wonder I see many Koreans visit this shop.

Shop no. 4: Cafe Tai Lei Loi Kei 大利來記咖啡室. We caught sight of the youngster holding the banner for this pork chop shop. Ms K says that many bloggers commented that this shop's pork chop buns are nice. Hence we approached him for directions to the shop.

Out of the 4 shops I came across, this one sells the most expensive pork chop buns at MOP25. This shop was originally a cafe located in Taipa, but closed down recently and they relocated here to a small take-away shop near St Paul's Ruins.

The pork chop was well marinated and the bun crisply but MOP25 / SGD4 is a tad too expensive for a pork chop bun.

Besides pork chop buns, the other must eat local snack in Macau is the Portuguese egg tart. We didn't know which one is the popular one, but just happened to pass by Maxims bakery, and the tarts were freshly baked out of oven, so we just bought a few to try.

Tarts were only so so, I felt that the crust was too thick, and nothing special about the egg. Luckily they were still warm when we ate them.

At the foot of the street leading to Ruins of St Paul's (大三巴街), shops line along both sides of the narrow road, mostly selling Macau traditional snacks with the no. 1 popular item being almond biscuits. 

Entrance of 大三巴街 - looks like a Macau version of Harajuku to me.

Many shop assistants carry a big tray of almond biscuits for you to sample. You can only find them here at 大三巴街 and not other shops elsewhere. Competition is stiff here!

Koi Kei (鉅記手信) is still the more popular shop along the street. One of the reasons it is highly popular must be because of Tsai Lan (蔡瀾) who endorses their products. Tsai Lan is a popular food critic, columnist, television host and movie producer famous in Hong Kong. Having him endorse a product must mean that their taste is up to his standards.

According to Koi Kei's website on a market research conducted, they have 71% of the market share in souvenirs bought in Macau in 2011. As per their banner shown on the photo, they have been the no. 1 selling souvenir in Macau for consecutive 9 years.

I think Koi Kei must be one of the most successful businesses in Macau, after the Casinos. 

Just along the short 200m or so street, I have already spotted 3 Koi Kei - Branch 4,5 & 8. Maybe branches 6 & 7 are just around the corner?  Business must be damm good to have so many shops open so close to each other.

KoiKei sells a wide variety of items, but Almond cookies must be their must buy item. I like their egg rolls as well. Mum likes their Ginger sweets.  

Traditional antique store vs modern wine store line up along the street. There is even a painting shop.

We finally reached Ruins of St Paul's 大三巴牌坊.   

Many tourists were taking photos of Ruins of St Paul's, from various parts of the steps leading to St Paul's. Me being a Kiasu Singaporean, I had to take various shots of it too! Which angle is the best?

We came across a roadside stall selling skewers of food. Seems like Macau people like to eat this local street snack, which is cooked in boiling water and dipped in satay sauce.

The stall owner has a bad temper - I was lucky to take this shot secretly when she was looking away.

There was another roadside stall selling fruit and the cherries looked so attractive from far. They were selling for MOP38/SGD6 per pound which is equivalent to approx 450grams. Ms K bought one pound of them. I don't eat cherries, but she said they were not as tasty. 

Ms K wanted to drink bubble tea, and I happened to see a small street with the Gong Cha logo, so we went towards there. Not only was Gong cha there, there were 3 bubble tea shops side by side each other. 

More shops selling skewers and the other specializing in beef offal. These 2 shops are quite popular, many people were queuing to choose their skewers.

If you didn't look up these shophouses, you would have missed these old residential houses which are built above. Hey they may be old, but they are located in the prime area! 

There are many small streets along the area, so if you don't look closer, you would have miss them. We caught sight of this Shanghainese stall selling various types of dumplings. 

Ms K likes to eat gyoza, so we ordered a few of the 锅贴 & 生煎包to last us for the afternoon. They were cheap at MOP1.5 & MOP2 each respectively, but a disappointment.   

On the way along the streets, I saw many people carrying a plastic bag filled with tiny pancakes. After reaching back to Senado square, I finally found the answer. There was a street vendor making pancakes on the spot. The pancakes are so simple to make!  and it only takes a few seconds before they are cooked. 

Senado Square, San Ma Lo and the streets along the Ruins of St Pauls is just a very small area which many tourists frequent. However, just by walking, looking, eating, and taking photos, we already spent close to 4 hours there. 

Here are my list of recommendations when you visit:

1) Try the noodles and congee at Wong Chi Kei 

2) Pork Chop Buns & Portuguese egg tarts are a must!

3) Get some souvenirs from Koi Kei - the almond cookies and egg rolls are good!

4) Take a photo at the Ruins at St Paul's and if you have time, take the steel stairways to climb up to the top of the facade from the rear

   

    

Taipa Cunha Street, Seng Cheong Restaurant, Macau 官也街, 誠昌飯店

Cunha Street (官也街 or Rua do Cunha in Portuguese) is a narrow pedestrian street located in the town centre of Taipa Island, Macau. 

As the shuttle bus from our hotel - Galaxy Macau provides free shuttle bus to the old Taipa Village, which is just at the entrance of Rua do Cunha, we took the shuttle there as we had some time to spare after we checked into the Galaxy.

Shuttle bus stops just in front of Cunha street entrance.  

Koi Kei (鉅記) must be the number 1 most popular shop found almost everywhere in Macau. The first shop you see at Cunha street is Koi Kei. 

The smell of bbq meat whiffs over once you approach Koi Kei. Their bbq meats is also one of the popular items for souvenirs. Their variety of bbq meats is even more than Bee Cheng Hiang!

The lineup of shops along Cunha street consists mostly of restaurants, cafes and local snacks. Gelatina Mok Yi Kei seems famous for their durian ice-cream, but we were not in the mood for ice-cream at that time. 

Fong Kei Bakery was also recommended in many of the Macau guidebooks. There were many newspaper clippings of the shop pasted on the walls. Fong Kei is famous for their 肉切酥, or meat filling biscuits, not sure if it is the correct English translation for it.

Their packaging is not as nice as Koi Kei, as it is wrapped in a plastic roll. The boss will put your orders into the yellow box. I bought two 肉切酥 and two 杏粒杏仁餅 (Almond biscuit). 肉切酥 is very crispy, mum loves it. No wonder it is Fong Kei's best selling item. As for the almond biscuit, it's a tad too hard, still prefer Koi Kei's almond biscuit.

As we did not have lunch and it was already 5 plus in the evening, we decided to dine at Seng Cheong Restaurant 誠昌飯店 which is famous for their crab porridge 驰名水蟹粥.

Recommendation of some of their popular dishes.  

We ordered the crispy fried fish balls 酥炸鯪魚球. The fried balls were huge - almost the size of a ping pong ball. 鯪魚 is also known as mud carp and can be found along the Pearl River. This fish is usually made into fish balls. 

As usual, we needed vegetables in our diet, so we ordered the lettuce with dried scallops 瑤柱扒生菜. The broiled lettuce was covered in shredded dried scallops. Should be an easy dish to try at home.

Last came the star of the meal - crab porridge 水蟹粥. The portion was quite large even when we only ordered the small size. We had quite high expectations for the porridge, being the no.1 popular dish of the restaurant, but the porridge was too dilute, not like the cantonese style congee. Maybe locals like this type of flavour, as the lady next to our table came in to order this dish only, and managed to finish the whole big bowl by herself. Incredible!

Casa de Pasto Seng Choeng  誠昌飯店  

28-30 Rua do Cunha, Vila de Taipa

澳门氹仔舊城區官也街28-30號 

Opening hours: 12 noon - 12 midnight

Wong Chi Kei Noodle & Congee House, Macau 黃枝記

Wong Chi Kei (黃枝記) is a noodle and congee restaurant located at Senado Square, Macau which has a long history since opening in 1946 and has established themselves as one of the popular noodle shops in Macau. They also have another 3 branches, one in Macau (old shop) and the other two in Hong Kong, at Central and Hong Kong International Airport. 

Wong Chi Kei is located on the left side of Senado Square. 

Wong Chi Kei shop exterior

Besides the popular noodles in soup, they have an extensive menu of braised noodles, fried noodles, congee, rice and other specialities. 

We ordered a variety of food from their menu - Ms K had wanted to try the braised noodle with shrimp eggs, one of Macau's popular noodle dishes, I suggested to order it with the wanton, to try out Wong Chi Kei's wantons. (雲吞蝦子撈麵). The dark red powder on the noodles is not chilli flakes, it is actually the shrimp (蝦子) which makes this dish so popular. 

Next came the congee - 艇仔粥. It had cuttlefish, fish slices, jellyfish, roasted peanuts. 

Cow flank rice noodle soup - 牛腩河. Cow flank was what was written on the menu - it's actually beef brisket.  As we had too much noodles these few days, we decided to go with rice noodles instead. 

Deep fried wanton - 酥炸雲吞. I had tried this the previous time I came to Wong Chi Kei and I just love their crispy wanton skins with the eggy flavour. The wantons are huge, and also comes with a sweet dipping sauce. 

Needed some vegetable input into our body, so we added another vegetable dish - kailan with oyster sauce 蠔油芥蘭. The kailan in Hong Kong and Macau is slightly different from those we have in Singapore, their stems are huge, but crunchy as well. Oyster sauce kailan is a very popular vegetable dishes which can be found in most noodle and congee shops. They just blanch the vegetables in hot water and drizzle some oyster sauce over it. Simple yet delicious. 

Total bill came out to be MOP145 which is around SGD24. Cheap for 3 persons. The most expensive dish was the shrimp noodles with wanton (MOP43 / SGD7) - I guess the shrimp is the costly part of the dish. 

Even ex Hong Kong governor Chris Patten also came to support!

Wong Chi Kei 黃枝記

17 Largo do Senado, Macau 
澳門議事亭前地17號
Open daily: 8am - 12midnight














*Note on currency in Macau: You can use Hong Kong dollar in Macau - all shops big or small do accept. However, some of them will return you change in Macau dollars, so be careful to check and make sure you spend away them before going back to Hong Kong.