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It's My
Birdbrain Favorite Cousin's birthday, and I decided to organize a weekend of wine and dine for her. We would revisit 3 of the best restaurants in Macau and get pampered the whole time. And to make it easy on ourselves, we decided to stay at the Grand Lisboa Macau for the night - my third stay this year...
Our first stop would be at
The 8 (8餐廳) in the Grand Lisboa. Hello Kitty had suggested that we come here for
dim sum so that we could order a particular item for My Favorite Cousin. I was, of course, only too happy to oblige...
Given that there were only 3 of us today, I figured we wouldn't need to be tucked away in a private room... and I would finally have a chance to sit in the main dining room. But as usual Nigel was too kind to me, and we ended up in a private room anyway.
I ordered mostly
dim sum today as I wanted to try out a few more items, but first we started with the usual two
amuse bouche:
Stir-fried minced chicken with pine nuts and capsicum in crispy bird's nest
Abalone with yuzu jelly
Steamed "Shanghainese" dumplings with chicken essence and vintage dried tangerine peel (老陳皮雞汁小籠包) - I've always loved this both for the delicate wrapper and for the smoky flavors coming from the aged tangerine peel. Slurp.
Crispy barbecued pork buns with preserved vegetables (脆香叉燒包) - I could never get tired of having this dim sum. It is just too cute! All those "spines" on the porcupine were hand-snipped with a pair of scissors. What incredible attention to detail! And yes, it
was delicious.
Puff pastry with river shrimp in purse shape (河蝦肉鬆手袋酥) - and this the reason we're here... a cute little handbag-shaped dim sum. Perfect for the ladies, who couldn't stop taking pictures of this "handbag" placed next to a real one...
And yes, this was delicious, too.
Shrimp toast filled with mango in fish shape (魚形香芒蝦多士) - it's been 2 years since I last ordered this, and this big head shrimp still looks cute today. Even those two eyes which were made of chocolate.
I love mango, so is it any surprise that I loved how it tasted?
Deep-fried glutinous dumplings filled with roasted pork belly and dried shrimps in calabash shape (像形葫蘆菓) - I love 咸水角, and here they've made it into this incredibly cute shape. Yum!
Vietnamese spring rolls filled with shrimp and black fungus (特式越南春卷) - the dried shrimp inside were pretty crunchy.
Sauteed French bean with crispy potato in chili sauce (香辣脆薯法邊豆) - I jokingly called this "French beans with French fries", but that's exactly what this was! The fries were very crunchy, and had been dressed in a spicy
vinaigrette.
Steamed octopus dumplings filled with cuttlefish mousse served in shark's fin cartilage (沙魚骨湯浸八爪魚餃) - inside the bowl of delicious shark's bone/cartilage soup were these little octopus-shaped dumplings - complete with tentacles - filled with tasty cuttlefish mousse. The big pieces of dried shrimp (蝦乾) also lent their wonderful flavors to the soup.
Steamed turnip cake with shredded conpoy in fish shape (瑤柱蒸魚形蘿蔔糕) - I know these have been made in molds, but they still look damn cute. And tasty, too, with the finely diced chunks of radish.
Baked tartlette with crabmeat in curry sauce (葡香焗蟹撻) - gotta have this... with lots of crabmeat and that fragrance coming from "Portuguese sauce".
It was time for dessert, and I was so glad that My Favorite Cousin took my suggestion.
Baked Alaska with red bean sorbet (火焰椰子紅豆蛋糕) - we were surprised to find a little chocolate plaque wishing My Favorite Cousin "happy birthday".
Aaaaaand of course the birthday girl liked it. It's ice cream, after all...
Portuguese egg tart (葡式蛋撻) and
milk tea (奶茶) - my favorite way to end the meal... with my favorite milk tea.
It's a birthday celebration, so of course we need to pop the cork an appropriate bottle of wine...
1976 Schloss Schönborn Erbacher Marcobrunn Riesling Auslese - lovely marmalade, a hint of nuttiness, and honey. Lovely on the palate, with a very long finish.
Not surprisingly, this was a fantastic and a very happy meal for us. Many thanks to Nigel and team for taking good care of us, and helping us kick off the weekend.
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