Macau Restaurant, Tsim Tsa Tsui, Hong Kong

with family in Hong Kong

I hope you are enjoying the notes on Hong Kong restaurants. I had been to HKG countless times for work and leisure. Like my favourite foodie town Penang, I find Hong Kong to be such a foodie paradise...so much to eat and experience. But for this trip, I consulted a foodie friend Bernard for his recommendations. He wrote a long treatise, complete with capsule reviews and how to get there of many of his favourites. Macau Restaurant is one of them.

I understand from a local HKG friend of mine that this restaurant was set up by the famous Stanley Ho family in Macau...don't know if its true, but not a surprise.

Open till late, the place was buzzing when we got there at about 10pm. I went straight to the dishes recommended by Bernard.

Curry beef. Interesting methots...I won't normally associate curry with Hong Kong...I get the impression that the natives are somewhat shy when it comes to spices and hot chilli. But this dish was a revellation.



Wonderfully rich, it tasted like a mild Indian curry...full of spices, but not very hot. Potatoes which I think were boiled and cooked in the curry was very nice...it had spent sufficient time inside the spices to have taken on the spiced flavour. The beef was extremely tender, still retaining some beefiness despite the spices. There was a little fire from peppers rather than chilli...Very nice.

We next had a very traditional Macau favourite - baked rice with pork chops and cheese.



This was a winner. A fairly large slab of deep fried pork chop adorns atop a claypot full of fluffy flavoured rice, and then smothered with a tomato based cheese sauce. And baked.

The pork was nicely done. Roughly medium in doneness, it must have been deep fried in super hot oil, so that the outsides are crisp, but so fast that the insides are still uncooked. And the final process to medium is done in the baking with the rice and other ingredients.



The rice was very nice. It was fluffy, a bit on the firm al-dente side, which is how I love my rice. And had a beautiful flavour reminding one of pork, tomatos and cheese...a wonderful combination.

We also ordered the crispy pork buns...a house special.



This one didn't do it for us. A bun is sliced open and a slice of fried pork with onions are inserted like a sandwich. While as a sandwich it was ok, edible...tasty even, we didn't feel it was any special or particularly interesting.

Bernard also recommended the roasted squab.



The last time we were in HKG as a family was in 2005 with my mother...and we tried squab...having heard great things about this particular speciality in HKG. We didn't quite get it. Tasted like a more gamey version of a very small spring chicken, we thought.

But this version served up at Macau was different. Edward took an immediate liking for it. I would describe it to taste like a cross between chicken and duck meat, but slightly more gamey. The squab, understandably was smallish. And a whole bird was served.

Overall I think the restaurant is a winner. Great food, and excellent prices. The entire meal for the 4 of us came up to less than HK$200. For a restaurant right in the middle of everything in Kowloon...quite a deal.




Macau Restaurant
25-27 Lock Street
Tsim Tsa Tsui
Kowloon, Hong Kong
open till late (2am)