Lard Cake

Mmm... Sesame lard cake. Joins the ranks of "gelatinous mutant coconut" (macapuno) as most unappetizing translations of food names.

Imagine a World Without Sticks

Asians would be completely lost.


Fishballs, squidballs, chicken balls, kikiam in UP.


Assemble your own soup in Macau.


Squiddy thing in curry-ish thing.

Famous To Me

The very appearance of someone in a publicly placed photo makes them persons of curiosity to the easily amused. And his cookies were really good.

Racism

Along a Macau street.

Stacks

Regular eggs, fermented eggs.

The Chinese like stacking, stacking, stacking. Everything is stacked. Repetition makes mixing storage with display a bit more acceptable. Small stores have boxes beside the counter, along their walls.

It also makes refuse less of an eyesore.


Styrofoam coolers along the road.

Peeling Wall

Milk Tea Bars

Chocolate milkshake with mint syrup on the bottom.

Pearl shakes and milk tea joints are all over Macau and Hong Kong. We trawled a couple. I'm not sure if these are mushrooming recently now, just as Manila is seeing a frozen-yogurt construct-your-own-dessert wave.

I would never drink this sort of stuff in the Philippines, but the lure of novelty is a lure indeed.


Tapping some ice cream into the milkshake.


Robot bartender shakes milk tea.


Separating the ice.


Robot sealer seales with plastic film.

Improvised Dining Area

Later, dismantle and perhaps use the coolers again for ingredients?

Overturned styrofoam coolers served as tables for one of my meals along a Macau sidestreet.


They eat fast!

You need to grab a small stool and make yourself at home, perhaps rubbing elbows with workers on a quick break. Not too much talking here.


Lotus and stringbeans with rice. 16 patakas or less than 100 pesos. No plates here-- styro is all they got.


Marginalized vegetarian I am not.

Saliva Soup

"Quality A" little bunches of bird spit.

In China (and Chinatowns and Chinese territories), you will find, in health shops, expensive packets of birds' nests being sold. They are used to make soup that apparently balances the body's constitution.


Ronnie, our caretaker. Also a busyador (nest gatherer).

Seeing these in Macau and Hong Kong made me think of my recent trip to one major nest source, the El Nido group of islands in Palawan. The place had been visited by Chinese traders as early as the Sung Dynasty (mentioned in books more than one century BC!) owing to the abundance of resources such as the small bowl-like formations of hardened swiftlet spit found in the caves.

This paradise was called Pa-Lao-Yu or "Land of Beautiful Harbors" by the Chinese, and named El Nido or "the nest" by the Spanish.


El Nido cliffs.

Among these jagged and beautiful limestone cliffs and mountains of El Nido are caves where bats and swiftlets or balinsasayaw abound. There are views that nest collection is endangering the birds. People often to collect beyond the prescribed period. as the thing commands exorbitant prices on the market. Creating any kind of shelter or useful thing out of bodily excretions is indeed a talent, which we shouldn't ever lose to commerce.


Here are some, on a spinning plate. That really cracked me up.

Better Living Through Soup

Muscles? Allergic reaction? I can't read this Macau restaurant spread but it's funny.

I was watching some Chinese programming in my room and saw a (subtitled) news segment about the resurgence of medicinal soup. For any affliction you have-- too much heat, a sluggish liver, qi stagnation, lackluster hair-- there exists a corresponding soup. Many are cooked over a few hours and double as some kind of therapeutic tea.

With offerings going way beyond just bovine balls for virility, this is the savory soup version of the ancient adage: "Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, in the most delightful way."

Furthermore, office people are taking up arms and demanding for healthier food despite their stuckness in their buildings. In Hong Kong, where the LOHAS segment is expanding just as it is worldwide, good money is being made on pre-ordered medicinal soup, delivered to offices everyday.

Reminds me of the Goolai phenomenon in Manila, except it's food made using traditional and native ingredients.

Carinderias, Macau-Style

Macau side-street eats.

Back from a short trip to Macau. I've officially expanded my intestines beyond tolerable levels, gaining 3 pounds in the process. Amazed at how similar our carinderia layouts are to theirs.