Hong Kong Street Food Tour Day 8 ~ Macau & Zhuhai, China

We leave our hangovers in Macau and visit Zhuhai in China for a three hour tour, a three hour tour...

We awoke from our previous night of revelry with a hangover that would kill an elephant, or at least Kyle Sandilands. A disastrous outcome when so much food was waiting to be enjoyed in our little neighbourhood. Miss Chicken thought she would never be able to eat again...

By 4.00pm we needed to get out and show our sorry faces to the world. Wandering around the block we came to the happiest cafe in all of Macau – bright chairs, happy staff and an interesting decor. The cafes here still have smoking and non smoking sections that have no real barrier to them.

Whatever this was we weren't up to it in our current condition. There were many trays of it cooling, congealing, coagulating and threatening our stomachs with mutiny.

All miss Chicken could face was some butter toast – thick bread, slabs of butter and a divine miracle was about to occur.



This mystery soup was a godsend with a flavoursome, rehydrating, miracle working broth. And it was perfect for dipping the buttery toast into. The magical mystical medicinal powers of noodle soup were proven once again.



The restaurant that saved our lives.



A truck full of 'gourmet powder', Chinese for MSG.

We had an hour before we rushed off to Zhou Hai, the special economic zone over a land crossing between Macau and China, and home of the mighty Pearl River beer. We paid for a short visa and planned to eat and get massaged to ward off any lingering effects of our casino binge. The crowds were rushing through the barriers to either get back in or out before some arbitrary cut off time. Once through, you enter a world of shopping where you realise nearly every object in the world is made in China, and all available for sale in a huge mall.

Once outside the mall a different Zhou Hai unfolds – meat markets with anything for sale, vegetable sellers with a bunch or two of home-grown greens laid out, and food stalls galore.

We started with some vegetable steam buns that cost around 10c, and watched others in carts preparing takeaways of noodles, vegetables and pickles.



Our forst morsel in China proper, something as simple as a steamed bun is delightfully different to anything I've had across the border.



So much food and only so much room in the tum, ode for a Tardis.



Random food stall.



This paved mall is a great eat street.



Food is everywhere.



Recovery was slow – we needed a few beers first and a stretch of street bars beckoned. Not unlike the bars in Thailand, they were manned, or woo-manned, by young girls who incited you to drink lots of beer. At least Connect 4 hadn’t taken off there yet. We spied some men sipping a clear liquid out of small glasses and felt game to try – it was water!



Haizhu hair of the dog. Eventually we had enough to make a toupee of the dog.



The hunt began for our food. We were in dodgy restaurant heaven, and found a small packed place on the edge of the market with no menus. We used the simple method of walking around and pointing at what other diners were eating to order – fish with vegetables, noodles and more noodles, and more beer. The restaurant had a fantastic voice over pounding through tinny speakers. It was like some sci-fi dictator barking orders to the minions who scurried about in the kitchen.



Fish with veggies.



Noodles.



More Noodles.




Token veggies. We did order some more exotic dishes but something was lost in translation. We were very grateful for the waitress who put up with us and the language barrier but she wouldn't accept a tip no matter how hard we tried.

Afterwards, our expat host, Machu Picchu takes us to his favourite massage joint. It’s all kosher – you can sit and smoke and drink beers and have your feet pounded, your nails cut to the quick and your ears cleaned.