Macau

Casinos are extravagant by necessity. After all, the definite objective of gambling is material. Venetian is the clear biggest among all those glittering monstrosities in Macau (澳门). The 2nd floor simulates Venice: the street, the side-walk restaurants, the blue sky, and, yes, canals, three of them, teeming with Gondola . The fully air-conditioned “outdoor” is huge as a real city. Our pedometer registered more than 10,000 steps when I left the compound, tired legged and confused by the real sky that obviously darkened hours ago.

This Hong Kong’s little brother is now the choice destination for conferences and gambling recreation in Asia, siphoning revenue and visitors away from Las Vegas. Inside the familiar named compounds: Wynn, Sands, MGM, Venetian, the floor designs reflect drastically clientele and gambling pattern. Unlike Vegas casinos that assault visitors upfront with loud forest of slot machines, the gaming areas are buffered by stores, barriers, or short corridors. There are variety of games such as Keno, sport gambling, nor big buffet restaurants. Instead, there are seas of Baccarat tables of various table limits and rule variations. Macau is a Baccarat town.

Baccarat is a curiously simple game that requires no judgment. It is completely a game of chance. The minimum bet for a typical table is 300 MOP (Macau money, about one eighth of a dollar). The “high limit” tables are 2,000 MOP or higher. For several hours’ fun at the minimal table, a gamer needs a thousand dollar’s bankroll. My wallet informed me that it failed to meet this requirement (I only gamble with cash). I watched the crowd in awe: larger sum of money changes hands here than Vegas, per capita!

China ceded Macau to Portugal in 1887. When Britain returned Hong Kong to China by the term of the lease, in 1997, Portugal government also agreed the same two years later. Under the “one Country, two systems” policy, The only things China changed was defense and foreign affairs. For all practical purposes, Macau’s change of sovereignty had no effect on people’s lives.

A friend highly recommended a French restaurant, Robuchon a Galera (法國餐廳), in Lisboa Hotel, so I just showed up without a reservation. Lucky me that someone cancelled and I took a table on the spot. It was an amazing meal: near perfection in almost all regards: foods, wine pairings, plating, timing, service, and ambience. (Of course the company was simply perfect!) I later found that this restaurant has 3 Michelin stars. Lady Luck was with me, just not for the gaming table. For dinner, I tried the Portugese restaurant Gosto (葡軒) at Galaxy casino. The roast suckling was literally finger sucking good and the seafood rice was rich and tasty. By comparison, the Portuguese chicken, a curry dish, became too mild. Bacalhau (Cod fish in Portuguese, 馬介休) is really made of salted dried cod mixed with potato and deep fried. Every household has its own recipe and the one from this restaurant is not bad.

I strolled through the busy alley and visited the famous church ruin (大三巴排坊). The stores and crowd were more interesting than the destination. Then I went to the Taipa old town (官也街) and tried the famous pork-chop sandwich from a glorified street vendor (大利来) near a temple (天后宫). This place makes only 400 French-style buns for pork-chop sandwich everyday (800 during weekends) starting at 2:30pm sharp. They usually sell out within 20 minutes. We got one with a different bun (which they sell all day with unlimited quantity). It was a good sandwich, great if you consider the price of 22MOP (same price for the special bun). I honestly failed to see what can possibly be the big deal about the special bun. Guess I will need to find out next time.