Hello everybody!
Apologies for the long haitus as I have been busy with work, and I just came back from a 10 day holiday to Macau, Shenzhen and HK!
Fully recharged! Woohoo!
First, I would like to share with you guys my experience at The Eight in Macau.
This wasn't my dining place of choice to begin with, as I wanted to try
Robuchon au Dome, also located at the
Grand Lisboa Hotel.
Alas, it was full on the day I went, but I managed to book a table for the next day (so you can look out for the review here!).
I was curious about The Eight, as I had heard about it before coming to Macau, so I went downstairs to take a look. The Wife wanted to have dimsum for lunch, so I thought 'Might as well have it at a Michelin-starred place.' And we weren't disappointed!
The entrance to the restaurant is beautiful, unfortunately I was too caught up to take any pictures ;p.
We were taken through an automatic door, into a short and dark passageway light with moving lights.
The next door opened to reveal a beautifully decorated restaurant.
The entire place isn't very big, by my count it only seats roughly around 100. It probably has a greater capacity but I am not counting the private rooms.
The table setting is not typical of those you would find in Singapore. Notice the 2 pairs of chopsticks.
Tea is served in the pot as above, with a tealight below to keep it warm. Nice touch, exactly what separates the Michelin-Starred from those that aren't. It's all about the details man.
The wet towel is served in a little shot glass, with warm water poured in. Kinda feels like the restaurant version of taking a flight on Singapore Airlines!
Check out the COMPLIMENTARY appetizer. ABALONE. Albeit a tiny one, but ABALONE. I was still telling The Wife that they definitely charge for this, but NOOOOOOO. It's FREE. Totally blown away when the bill came and this wasn't charged.
The abalone is sitting on a jelly-like substance which tastes like orange peel. Strangely enough, the slight bitterness and citrusy orange peel flavour blends well with the distinct taste of abalone.
The pork is just normal though, can only taste the peppers used in frying. No porky taste at all.
Above is one of the dishes we ordered - Steamed Cristal Blue Shrimp Dumplings in Goldfish Shape.
This is quite similar to har gao, and we had this earlier this year during CNY at
Peony Jade and The Wife really liked it a lot, so we decided to try this rendition.
For me, the skin is too thick, and I think it would have been better if it were thinner, but The Wife liked it chewy. To each his own!
The prawns were juicy and succulent though, can tell that they are top quality by the texture.
Being in Macau, it went without saying that I had to try something I could never (maybe rarely) find back in Singapore. Pigeon. I initially wanted to order Smoked Pigeon Flavoured with Rose, but the waitress said that it might be a little bitter and is an acquired taste. She recommended the Poached Pigeon in Homemade Soya Sauce instead as it was a safer choice, so I went with that.
The presentation left much to be desired if I were to base it on their Michelin stars. I quite regretted trying as the meat was pretty tough. I'm not a big fan of tough meat. But flavour wise it was great, not as gamey as duck, and it had the soya sauce taste soaked in. I could see fans of this, but I would not order next time around.
Next up : Baked Tartelette with Crabmeat in curry sauce.
The presentation instantly won us over! These little critters are so cute! And the fact that they are super tiny shows the effort put into the detailing!
Taste wise, the curry feels like Japanese curry, on the sweeter side. You can feel bits of the crabmeat in the curry, giving texture to each bite (actually only 1 bite for me and the thing is gone LOL). The crab pastry itself is very crispy, and quite oily, which makes it quite jelat. Overall still worth a try if just to see the little crabs.
A little bit of decadence is next on the list : Pan-fried Superior Bird's Nest with Crabmeat in "Pei. Pa Style"
The spring onion is pretty strong, and though I normally don't like spring onion, I found this dish quite enjoyable. You can taste the sweetness of the crab with each bite. The bird's nest is actually just there for texture as there isn't any taste to it, but you can definitely make out the strands of bird's nest at the end of each bite. The skin of this dumpling like creation is also very crispy and adds dimension to the dish. Worth trying! But pretty pricey lah...the price you see on the menu is just for 1 of these, not like other dim sum dishes which come in a trio.
We had to come back down to Earth at some point, and so we decided to order a 'normal' dish. Cha Siew Bao.
Well, 'normal' sure isn't in The Eight's dictionary. We noticed that there were 2 versions of cha siew bao in the menu
- Steamed Barbecued Pork Buns with Preserved Vegetables
- Crispy Barbecued Pork Buns with Preserved Vegetables
Going with the wait staff's recommendation, we went with the uncommon crispy version.
This was what greeted us.
Aren't they adorable?? I was (and still am) pretty curious how the chefs made the rows of spikes on the back. So uniform and neat. A mould of some sort perhaps? So interesting!
The crispy bit of the bun is only on the bottom, and it is really crispy! Pretty special to have normal bun texture on the top and crispy panfried texture on the bottom. I think you really need kungfu for this!
Again, though I'm not a huge fan of spring onion, I find this mixture quite palatable. It might have to do with the fact that their version of char siew is not as sweet as the ones in SG. Theirs lean toward the salty side. Worth a try.
The Wife insisted on trying dessert, and she remembered something she
tried back here in Singapore. The Eight had something similar so we
ordered that.
Sweetened Almond Soup with Bird's Nest and Egg White. I've never been a big fan of almond soup so I shall not comment on this, but The Wife had tears of joy in her eyes when she had her first taste. I'm not kidding! So if you like almond soup, try it!
Egg tarts and tea were complimentary to end off a sumptuous lunch. We were stuffed by then.
We loved the place.
Food, ambiance, service all top notch.
Please do give The Eight a visit if you are ever in Macau. The Michelin stars do not drop out of nowhere! There is a basis behind it!
Price : About $40 per pax (for what we ate! Could be more depending on what you order!)
Address : 2/F Grand Lisboa Hotel, Macau
Tel : (853) 8803 7788
Signing off,
The Lunatic
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