Okay, I’m sure all of you are sick of hearing about me talk about the food here, but that seems to be the most difficult part of my adjustment here. The culture shock hasn’t really hit me so much in other respects, and if it has I got over it pretty quickly. But the food here in Macau, well, sucks.
Unlike Jakarta, Macau’s only familiar, American restaurants are McDonald’s and Starbucks. I’m proud to say I’ve only been to McDonald’s twice in the two and a half weeks I’ve been here, even though I’ve been tempted to go every night. :P I did find a restaurant called Pizza and Company, which has lots of Western food like pizza (duh, hence the name), burgers, salads, and hot dogs.
I’ve also noticed that bakeries are everywhere in Macau, and there’s even one right next door to my apartment! I saw a big bun with what looked like a chicken breast in it, so I tried it and it was really good! I’m thinking that it would be a good lunch to have often, since it has protein and that’s been a bit of an issue not just here in China, but when I’m off at college too. It’s such a hassle to buy meat and cook it when you can just whip up some pasta in a couple minutes.
But those are all places that I have to go out to eat at. In my “hostel” (a.k.a. apartment) I’ve been eating cereal every morning, PB&Js for lunch, and dinner is kind of a whatever you can find kinda deal. I’ve been going to bed a little hungry each night.
One problem with food here is that as a ServSafe certified card-holder, I find that the food safety standards are not where I feel comfortable with. Even that yummy chicken bun comes cold. Cold chicken? How long has it been sitting out on display? I nuke it in my microwave when I get back to my hostel. I also saw chicken legs wrapped up in seran-wrap at another bakery, and they were cold of course. Eww… Plus, the chicken is often dark meat, since the US exports their dark meat to China. Hooray for me.
Friday afternoon the IFT Student Union took us on a city tour of Macau’s peninsula and two islands, Taipa and Coloane. We ate at a local restaurant for lunch. The restaurant itself was a dive, and I felt a little unsure of the sanitary quality of the restaurant. We sat a big round tables that sat about ten people each (we fit more), and in the middle was a round tray that we set the plates on, and could rotate it to reach other dishes. Also, instead of serving utensils, everyone just dug in with their own chopsticks, even after putting them in their mouths. And keep in mind there are over ten people at the table. Gross.
Lunch ended up being a very frustrating experience for me for many reasons. For one, I was determined to use chopsticks, but asked for a fork just in case I needed a little assistance. The fork they gave me was really dirty, though, so I didn’t dare use it. Using the chopsticks was a little difficult for me, since a lot of the food they gave us was slippery stuff, like noodles and rice. At one point, one of the IFT students went to get me a clean silverware set when he saw me attacking my chicken with my chopsticks like daggers, which made me a little embarrassed at how bad my chopstick skills were.
We had a variety of things, like soup, eggplant, noodles, fried rice, fish, and some other things that I had no idea what they were. But I’m very proud of myself for at least giving everything a shot, except for the fish, whose eyes kept staring at me and making feel awkward eating it… But I can honestly say that I disliked, if not hated, everything I tried.
Unfortunately, I found out after the fact that the strange-tasting noodles were not noodles, but in fact, tiny eel-like fish. I failed to notice their tiny eyes. Nasty.
I also didn’t get anything to drink besides tea, and I HATE tea. I was also frustrated because the waitresses squeezed beside me to serve our food in the middle, and I even had a couple things spilled on me.
Even though we were dead starving by the time we got to the restaurant, I only had a taste of each thing. Wallace, the IFT Student Union President, was also eating with us, and noticed that I hadn’t eaten very much. He offered to have us stop at McDonald’s afterward, but I insisted that I was fine and that I really was full. The truth was, I’d kinda lost my appetite, and I didn’t want to offend any of the Chinese eating with us.
At this point I was on the brink of tears. The food was awful, I’d had some of it spilled on me, I was thirsty, I was embarrassed at my inept chopstick ability, and I felt like I’d insulted the locals at the table. All I wanted was a cheeseburger and a Coke.
We stopped at a small café on Coloane (where the seran-wrapped chicken legs were) and had Portuguese Egg Tarts. Apparently, this was the best place in Macau to get them, and they were actually pretty good. At least I had something tasty. Earlier I’d tried a free sample of what looked like moss green Jell-O that someone in Senado Square was passing out. It tasted funny. Turns out it was actually turtle. Bleh!!!
Dinner was a little bit better. I had plain, steamed, white rice, and I managed to eat it with chopsticks! They also had sweet-and-sour chicken (which tasted less sweet than what I’m used to) and lemon chicken (which tasted sweeter than I’m used to). It was nice to have something a little more familiar. But I did try pig intestine, which was so totally gross and weird.
So, here are the official winners for the top three weirdest things I’ve eaten EVER. Funny, they're all from Macau!
1. Pig intestine
2. Turtle jelly
3. Fish noodles
All in all, I’m proud of myself for at least eating local and giving the food a chance. I just didn’t like it. Sorry, Macau.
Time for a cheeseburger!
Kati
P.S. Thank you to my Swedish roommate, Maria, for the food pictures she posted on Facebook!
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