Margaret's Cafe e Nata @ Edificio Kam Loi, Macau

Located near Senado Square, it sits quietly amongst a backlane. If you look carefully while walking along those jewellery shops opposite the road of Grand Lisboa Hotel, you might just see the sign pointing you to the right direction.

walking towards the cafe

morning crowd on a Saturday

This is basically a self-serve joint, so just find yourself a seat. Share table if you must, or simply do a take-away. Besides egg-tarts, they also have simple cakes, pastries, and sandwiches. The menuboard is inside the shop. For sandwiches, you don't need to pay first. Proceed to the sandwich counter and tell them what you want. Then only go to the cashier to pay, order egg tarts and drinks.

If you had ordered drinks like hot coffee or hot milk tea, then you will get a queue tag and they will send you the drinks later.

queue tag

If you're ordering egg tarts (like half a dozen or more) to take-away, then the kitchen will prepare the order for you. If you're eating in, then remember to collect the egg tarts from the staff manning the egg tarts counter before going back to your seat.

take-away box

some more charred...

huge egg sandwich

egg tart

soft, and moderately sweet with flaky buttery crusts

milk tea

Egg tart sells for MOP8 per piece, while milk tea costs MOP7. The egg tarts tasted best when eaten fresh. Packed some to take home and its crusts turned chewy instead of flaky when it was reheated using a toaster.

Hei Wan @ Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong

Was feeling rather tired after walking around countless of alleys and shops. Passed by this dim sum place called "喜運", so we decided to go in and try (part of our to-do in Hong Kong was to eat some dim sum...). The lady asked us to wait for 5-10 minutes for a table.

shop front with menu board

take-away area

While we were waiting, we saw people coming in and ordering "鸡饭" or chicken rice. Not the hainanese chicken rice but the dim sum/soup restaurant type of steamed rice with chicken. The chicken pieces looked succulent and tender. Very fragrant too!

Soon, we were called and seated inside.

table setting

A flask of tea was immediately placed on your table as soon as you sit down. Next came the cups, plates and chopsticks. The waiter will also place a bowl for you to rinse the utensils with the tea. The tea from the flask is also our drinking tea for the night.

We ordered a variety of dim sum such as quail's egg siew mai, har gao, custard bun, century egg and lean meat porridge, soup of the day, salted fish meat cake with steamed rice, fried beancurd with mushroom fillings, fried springrolls, charsiew cheong fun, dong po beef balls and chicken feet. All are just single orders, so some of the items I did not get to try.

century egg, lean meat porridge

yummy porridge, flavourful

salted fish meat cake (pictured without the rice), nicely fragrant and not too salty

charsiew cheong fun, with rather thick layer of skin

assorted dim sum

quail's egg siew mai

har gao

har gao

chicken feet, nice sauce and tender feet with a bite

xiao long bao

fried beancurd skin with mushrooms

fried beancurd skin fillings

dong po beef balls, huge!

dong po beef ball

tender and nice

fried springrolls

fried spring roll with prawns and fruit

custard bun

not the type that we wanted!

We paid in total about HKD185 for the meal. So each pax was about SGD6+. Cheap and good.

Hui Lau Shan @ Hong Kong

Passed by this dessert shop while we were walking aimlessly around Mong Kok (or at least I think we were at Mong Kok....) We were pretty tired from all those walking around and not to mention, thirsty too. So what better way than to go in and have some cooling desserts!

signboard

The shop was pretty small in size, but we managed to get a table for us 5 pax.

menu

Service was brisk and very soon our orders came.

all time favourite mango pomelo

nice and smooth

They were having a special combo and it comprises of three small items. One of my group members got that for himself.

special combo

glutinous rice balls in mango soup

ice cream and jelly

Cold birdnest soup with hashima at HKD53 (less than SGD9)? Why not. Got one to try.

cold bird nest soup

birdnest

hashima and lotus seed

First time having hashima or snow jelly (or in reality, dried fallopian tube from a species of frog..ugh!). It tasted soft, and on its own nothing funky (thankfully!) The soup was sweet and cold. Nice. Lotus seed was still crunchy and birdnest was rather gooey. Drink everything together with the soup and it made a refreshing dessert.

The mango desserts there were as nice as whoever that had tried Hui Lau Shan (许留山) would say.