Cebu City and Camotes Islands

I first visited Cebu in June last year. Then I stayed at Mandaue City, but this time I stayed right in the middle of town in Cebu City on Colon Street. It is quite a different experience. This is the University that my god-son is attending in Cebu City. Many of their colleges and schools are located near the city centre.

You can also find monuments all around. Below are some of the more interesting monuments in Cebu City.

I found this building quite unusual. It stood out from the rest of the buildings on that road, and I like the colour scheme too.

This is the Provincial Capitol Building. It is like a city hall where the provincial government is located within, and it looks like a replica of the US White House. On the grounds there is a statue of Lapu-Lapu (considered to be a Filipino hero) and Sergio Osmena (former Governor of Cebu who became the 4th President of the Philippines).

Then there is the Independence Plaza and next to that is the Fort of San Pedro.

Within walking distance from the Independence Plaza is the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral where I attended morning mass on Sunday where they celebrated the 81st birthday of the Archbishop of Cebu City.

Taking a bus north to Danao took about an hour. There we boarded a motorized banca for a 3 hour boat ride to the Camotes Islands. Unfortunately, it was raining quite heavily throughout the day, so we did not really get a chance to explore the island and the resorts.

It was quite an experience sitting on a hard wooden bench on a rocking boat for over 3 hours. Upon arrival, we transferred to Poro port on 2 motorcycles, riding in the rain and getting soaking wet. Then it was time to take the ferry back to Danao.  All-in-all we travelled 6 hours on the Pacific Ocean.

    

More Interesting Food in Macau

A good friend told me about milk pudding that can be found around Senado Square, so when I was in Macau, I went in search for it. Found this shop can Milk Top which sells milk ice cream in a bottle. They have many different flavours including chocolate, strawberry, peach and original milk. Quite unusual but tastes ordinary. Not what I had expected.

Then we walked around the corner onto the main road and found the steamed milk pudding (燉鮮奶). There are quite a number of stores serving steamed milk pudding. It comes in a bowl and served either cold or warm. The cold version is like a mango pudding without the mango. It is smooth and taste like sweet tofu. I like the warm version better. It is like drinking a bowl of warm milk, but thick and and fragrant. Interesting and worth a try.

While walking down from St Paul's ruins, we came across a large crowd outside this shop. On closer examination, I realised this is one of the shops that I was looking for - 潘榮記. The specialty here is the crispy salted egg yolk cookie biscuit (咸蛋金錢餅).

After queueing for about 30 minutes, we managed to buy some of the biscuits to try. Made from simple ingredients of eggs, butter, flour and sugar, the dough is flattened and baked over an open fire for about 3 minutes. The result is crispy biscuits like thin waffles with a fragrant salted egg yolk taste. Quite unusual and worth a try. However, I would have liked them a little sweeter.

Along a row of shophouses in Senado Square, the same good friend recommended that I must try the noodles from Wong Chi Kei (黃枝記) Noodle Restaurant. So we did. The noodles are hand made by the traditional man-bouncing-on-bamboo-over-dough method.

The noodles are chewy and the texture was good. However, the preparation lacks imagination and the taste was lacking. The soup noodles were very ordinary and came with only noodles and wanton. The braised noodles were too dry with hardly any sauce or gravy. And the worst was the braised noodles with shrimp eggs (招牌蝦子撈麵). Supposed to be their specialty dish, but it was totally devoid of any sauce. Just dry noodles with a generous sprinkle of shrimp eggs. Not even a strand of vegetables. It was so difficult to palate, so dry and tasteless. Even their wanton and shrimp dumplings were just ordinary. Nothing to rave about. Totally over-rated. It was a real disappointment.

Next day, we went in search of another highly recommended noodle shop on Rua dos Mercadores (營地大街) near the city centre. Not difficult to find, as there is usually a queue outside during meal times. 鳳城珠記麵食專家 is famous for their fish skin dumplings and wanton noodles.

Very unfortunately we had been eating too much and could not stomach any more noodles for the day, so we just ordered the wanton and the fish skin dumplings and a plate of vegetables. The wantons and the dumplings were simply fantastic. The skin was translucent and thin and the dumplings were so tasty. Especially the 魚皮餃. They were so good. And look at the vegetable (in this case 芥蘭菜), so green, so succulent, so crunchy and so tasty. The next time, I will definitely try the noodles as well. Definitely not to be missed.

We also went to the famous Sai Nam Restaurant to try out their shark's fin soup. It is a 2-storey shophouse along the Rua da Felicidade (福隆新街). Not difficult to locate as it is the only restaurant there with a security guard at the entrance.

After looking through the menu, we decided to only try the braised shark's fin, because the prices were so exhorbitant. Spent almost SGD300 for a claypot of shark's fin meant for 3 people. Although it was very good and tasty and you can see the individual strands of the fins, it still feels way too expensive to pay.

Further up the street, we found a long queue outside this shop that sells 碗仔翅. Should have tried that instead. I am sure the prices are more reasonable and the shark's fin soup just as good.

At the other end of the same street we found what is purportedly the "oldest restaurant" in Macau - Fat Siu Lau Restaurante (佛笑樓) famous for their roast pigeons. On my next trip, I will try it.

When travelling to Macau, everyone buys almond biscuits back. Almond biscuits are so popular that there are so many shops and chain stores that sell this pastry that it is hard to find the best one. Most tourists usually visit Choi Heong Yuen Bakery (咀香園餅家) which has many branches all over the city. For comparison, we also bought some almond biscuits from here. The plain almond biscuits is good, but the almond biscuits with fillings fell short. You can also try their Doce De Sesamo Preto (黑芝麻軟糖) which are really good.

Famous Hong Kong personalities, celebrities and those who know better will buy their almond biscuits from Pastelaria Chui Heong (最香餅家) located along Rua do Gamboa (夜呣街). Here you can see the almond biscuits being handmade and baked over a charcoal stove. The almond biscuits here are really good. Especially the ones filled with salted egg yolk and abit of pork fat. Absolutely delicious and fragrant and they just melt in the mouth. Also worth trying are their wife cake (老婆餅) and chicken biscuit (雞仔餅). And you don't pay tourist prices here.

Our last meal in Macau for this trip was at Restaurante Litoral (海灣餐廳) along Rua do Almirante Sergio. You need to make a reservation if you intend to dine here. It is always fully packed at meal times.

Here we get real Portuguese or Macanese cuisine, which is a mixture of Portuguese and Chinese cooking. We ordered the Vegetable Cream Soup and Codfish Cakes to start and a bottle of 2007 Vila Santa from the Portuguese Alentejano region. The food was excellent. So full of flavour and the wine was not bad too.

We also ordered the recommended African Chicken, which became my son's favourite. The combination of spices in the dish made it so flavourful.

Then came the Roast Suckling Pig with rice. The skin of the pig was so crispy and the meat was tender and juicy. This has to be my favourite.

And then there was the Curry Crab. It had the curry flavour but yet different from what we are used to. Only a little spicy, the gravy went well with the rice.

Then came the desserts. My wife had the Egg Pudding (which was like caramel), I had the Biscuit Mousse (which was a vanilla mousse with crumbled biscuits on top) and my son had the Egg Souffle. All were very good, but I must give special mention to the Egg Souffle. It was simply out of this world.

My first attempt at Macanese food, and I loved it. Will definitely be back for more. There's still Fernando's at Hac Sa Bay and A' Lorcha near the A-Ma Temple to try.