Tantalising... Macanese cuisine

The number of Australians heading to Macau is on the rise, but if James Packer’s latest gambling multiplex isn’t enough to sway you, Macanese cuisine will ensure a trip to the former Portuguese colony is well worth it.

Macanese cuisine offers an interesting blend of Cantonese and Portuguese culinary traditions, with an added touch of spice from African and India influences. 

Macau Food Week is currently underway in Sydney and to whet your palate Sheraton on the Park is serving traditional Macanese fare until 26 October.

In the hotel’s new Feast restaurant, Macanese delicacies such as caldo verde, a chourico-scented soup with finely chopped Chinese spinach; gomes de sa, salted cod with potato; and Portuguese-inspired egg tarts take pride of place on the expansive buffet. 

Diverse... Macau Food Festival

Also available is the genuine Macanese dish, Minchi (minced or ground meat flavoured with molasses and soy sauce and topped with a fried egg) as well as fragrant African chicken and Macau prawns.

If you’re still hungry for more, head over to Macau in Novmeber to celebrate the Island's 12th annual Food Festival. Held at Sai Van Lake Square from 9 – 25 November, the festival will showcase local cuisine as well as culinary delights from Europe, Mainland China and various parts of Asia.

www.macautourism.gov.mo

Whether it’s for business or leisure, visitors are filing into Macau. To accommodate the growth in visitor numbers, Macau is rapidly expanding.

Sands Cotai Central

New tourist attractions, international hotels, bars and restaurants and retail precincts are all part of Macau’s ongoing expansion project.

28 million people visited Macau in 2011, a rise of 12 per cent on 2010. In the first six months of this year alone, 13 million visitors made their way to Macau, an increase of 8.51 per cent on those months in the previous year. Australian visitor rates have risen 7.67 per cent compared with the same period last year.

“I can see this trend continuing as more and more hotels, attractions and activities are unveiled,” said Helen Wong, general manager of the Macau Government Tourist Office in Australia and New Zealand.

Portuguese influence ... Macau

“While the UNESCO World Heritage sites such as the Ruins of St Paul’s and Senado Square remain key tourist attractions for Australians, as too the Macanese food and Portuguese influences, there are many more things to see and do in Macau in 2012,” she said.

“The opening of new hotels, new shops and new restaurants will help cater for the growing numbers of visitors.”

Macau’s new tourist attractions include an incredible Butterfly Pavilion, erected by MGM Macau. This dome-shaped greenhouse houses nearly one thousand butterflies from around the world. Tourists can view these colourful beauties up until October.

There’s also the Fun Ice World on the Cotai Strip, giving visitors the chance to see copies of the world’s famous buildings, made completely out of ice.

Sands Cotai Central- the latest addition to Macau’s Cotai Strip- now provides an extra 1800 international standard hotel rooms and suites, with more added in September with the opening of the new Sheraton Macau. The Sheraton Macau will open with over 4000 guestrooms and suites and over 9000 square metres of function space.

The precinct, which connects the Macau isles of Taipa and Coloane will boast the world’s largest Sheraton brand. Macau already has the largest Holiday Inn and Conrad in the world.

Add on the Shoppes Cotai Central retail complex and you have one very impressive precinct. But it doesn’t stop there. Sands Cotai Central will also eventually add 5800 hotel rooms, 10,000 square metres of meeting space and 100 shops to the global Asian centre.

With around A$1 billion invested in the project, Macau’s transformation will highlight it as a prime business and leisure destination.

Modern Macau

For more information: Macau Government Tourist Office, www.macautourism.gov.mo

Firstly, there's the annual Feast of the Bathing Buddha, a day in the northern spring where the images of Buddha are ceremonially cleansed and purified in temples throughout the territory.
 

Then there's the Feast of the Drunken Dragon, a strange festival compared with other major Chinese Buddhist ceremonies and dates back from the Qing Dynasty, and the Feast of Maidens and the Feast of Hungry Ghosts.
 

And, of course, there's the November staging of the Macau Food Festival which highlights the many tantalising delicacies of a centre which prides itself on a true mix of recipes from east-meets-west backgrounds.
 

They're among a smorgasbord of festivals to crowd what is a congested calendar for 2012.
 

Beginning with the spectacular Chinese New Year holidays from January 23-25, the list also includes a few annual highly charged favourites such as the June running of the Macau International Dragon Boat Races and Dragon Boat Festival, the Macau International Fireworks Display Contest – in its 24th year – throughout September and the 59th Macau Grand Prix from November 15-18.
 

Combine the festivals with the many tourist attractions which make up the 25 UNESCO World Heritage-listed sites and the contemporary precincts and Vegas-like shows of the Cotai Strip, reclaimed land between the Macau islands of Taipa and Coloane, and there's much to see and do on a visit.

"Whether they are of Chinese or Portuguese heritage, the people of Macau truly like to celebrate with a festival," said Helen Wong, general manager of the Macau Government Tourist Office in Australia and New Zealand. "Prepare to feast on another year of song and dance, colourful religious parades, street markets, spectacular fireworks and plenty of sporting events," she said. "There's no shortage of reasons to visit Macau – throughout the year."
 

Away from the festivities, major attractions of Macau include the iconic 17th Century Ruins of St Paul's, the popular Senado Square with its wave-like paving, the main fortress as well as the Guia Fortress, a sprinkling of refurbished and colourfully painted churches, and the A-Ma Temple, which existed long before the arrival of the first Portuguese sailors 500 years ago.
 

There's also a 20-metre statue of the Goddess of Kun Iam – Goddess of Mercy -  as well as much taller 338-metre high Macau Tower, a venue for Skywalks around the perimeter of an outer rim 233 metres above the ground and a series of  A J Hackett bungee jumps.
 

Details:  www.macautourism.gov.mo

CALENDAR OF FESTIVALS AND EVENTS FOR 2012

Chinese New Year Holidays

Jan 23-25

Feast of the God Tou Tei

Feb 23

Procession of the Passion of Our Lord, the God Jesus

Feb 25-26

Feast of Pak Tai

Mar 24

Macau International Environmental Co-operation Forum & Exhibition

Mar 29-31

Ching Ming

Apr 4

Easter Holidays

Apr 6-7

A-Ma Festival

Apr 13

Feast of Buddha (Feast of the Bathing of Lord Buddha), Feast of the Drunken Dragon, Tam Kong Festival

Apr 28

Labour Day

May 1

23rd Macau Arts Festival

May 1 – Jun 2 (tentative dates)

Procession of Our Lady of Fátima

May 13

International Museum Day

May 18

12th Macau Lotus Flower Festival

Jun 9-17

Macau International Dragon Boat Races

Jun 16-17, 23

Dragon Boat Festival (Tun Ng Festival)

Jun 23

Feast of Na Cha

Jul 6

Macau Franchise Expo 2012

Jul 6-8

International Youth Dance Festival

Jul 20-26

Feast of Kuan Tai

Aug 11

Feast of Maidens

Aug 23

Feast of Hungry Ghosts

Aug 30

FIVB World Grand Prix

Aug (dates to be confirmed)

24th Macau International Fireworks Display Contest

Sep 8,15,22,29 & Oct 1

World Tourism Day

Sep 27

Mid-Autumn Festival

Sep 30

The Day Following Mid-Autumn Festival

Oct 1

National Day of the People's Republic of China

Oct 1

The Day Following National Day of the PRC

Oct 2

26th Macau International Music Festival

Oct 5 – Nov 4 (tentative dates)

Lusofonia Festival

Oct 19-21

Festival of Ancestors (Chung Yeung Festival)

Oct 23

10th Macau A-Ma Cultural & Tourism Festival

Oct (dates to be confirmed)

17th Macau International Trade and Investment Fair (MIF)

Oct (dates to be confirmed)

All Souls Day

Nov 2

Macau City Fringe Festival

Nov 9-25

59th Macau Grand Prix

Nov 15-18

Macau Food Festival

Nov (dates to be confirmed)

Macau International Marathon

Dec 2

Feast of Immaculate Conception

Dec 8

Macau Special Administrative Region Establishment Day

Dec 20

Winter Solstice

Dec 21

Christmas Holidays

Dec 24-25

Macau International Kart Grand Prix

Dec (dates to be confirmed)

Portuguese influence ... Macau

There are other things, Macau’s colonial charm, the winding backstreets of the old town, the nightlife, but those are the top three.

Set right on Hac Sa Beach and with old Fernando himself humping out steaming piles of suckling pig from the kitchen, you can dine inside under fans, or al fresco.

For some reason, within a very short time after I arrive my face is usually smeared with swine grease and the table is covered with empty San Miguel bottles.

Surely it can have nothing to do with the well picked carcasses of a suckling pig and its two cousins on the table whose owners no longer have any use for them and the tropical air, so thick you could cup it in your hands, and of course the concomitants beers need to ward off thirst, insanity and ennui?

We decide to order one more round of San Migs to go with the jugs of sangria, which have just arrived.

The suckling pigs are the tenderest on Earth and the crackling is perfect, the waves crash on the beach nearby and after a while and a few more laughs, more beer is summoned.

The bill – when it arrives is inconsequential when compared with the feast we have just had, which included bowl after bowl of spicy prawns, all of which were accompanied with the staple of the Macanese diet – crinkle cut chips. Yes, it’s a diet that makes it difficult to believe we’re in China.

Although the island’s population is 94 percent ethnic Chinese, it is easy to get authentic Portuguese cooking on the 29sq km island.
And when you get tired of punting away the kids’ inheritance while drinking free alcohol in the island’s many casinos and when you’ve had your fill of sightseeing among the ruins of European settlement, and

your shopping is done, I urge you to take a stroll into the old town and stop in one of many authentic Portuguese eateries.

In the narrow streets of the old town, the sights and heady aromas of east meets west and there are plenty of places to sit down and take in the atmosphere in one of the safest and friendliest of Asian towns.
The story of Portuguese involvement on the island goes back almost 600 years when they used it as a trading centre and gives much of the island‘s architecture the European appearance that distinguishes it to this day.
After the British opened up Hong Kong following the opium wars of the 1850s, the port became a backwater, a historical accident we can all be grateful for.
And until quite recently the place had been ignored. Not anymore. The Macau strip is now bigger than the one found somewhere in Nevada. Mix that with 600 years of European history melded with centuries of Chinese and you really get the feeling that what happens in Macau stays in Macau. What’s more: they’ve had a millennium or so of constantly proving it.

Restaurante Fernando
Praia de Hac Sa, Nº 9, Coloane, Macau
Tel: (+853) 882264

Vibe: Beach house in Salvador

Jonathan Porter