Lord Stow's Bakery, Chui Heong and Koi Kei Bakery

Enough with the hotel buffet business with the night before...  It was time to venture out into Macau and have some real eats.  That would involve driving from place-to-place, but fortunately for us, we had a friend take us around.  Seeing how the traffic and crazy driving along the narrow streets, it was a good thing as I would've been super-stressed otherwise.  After a delicious lunch at Miramar, we headed out to the beach and then onto Lord Stow's Bakery.

So how good can a Portuguese Tart be anyways?  I've already had one at the ferry terminal in Hong Kong and those were pretty solid.  Well, one bite into these warm suckers and it was love at first bite.  The firmly crispy tart shell shattered and was super flaky and buttery.  Inside, the custard was firm yet silky while being super aromatic.  It was only lightly sweet with the natural flavour of the coconut milk coming through.  Yah, these were worth the drive.  However, one could technically get these at a closer location to the casinos as well.

From Lord Stow's, we made our way back into town and meandered our way through the narrow streets to a small little shop famous for their freshly-made almond cookies. Okay, so why were we lining up for some Almond Cookies at a little shop in the middle of bustling Macau? Apparently, these are the best in town and not like the usual ones one would find in a grocery store.  Good enough for us, so we queued up at Chiu Heong like the rest of the lemmings.  Turns out that these were good!  With a firm powdery snap and crunch from the little nuggets of toasted almond, these cookies were addictive without being sweet.  They were more aromatic and nutty than just plains sweet.

We finally deviated from our plan and did the touristy thing and visited the ruins of St. Paul's.  We took our pictures and then proceeded down the steps over to Koi Kei for some jerky.  We decided on Pork Jowl and Spicy Pork.  Similar to Singaporean style jerky, the one here was moist, sweet and only lightly chewy.  The one difference is that they were not charred and less sweet.  We enjoyed the thickness of the jerky as it added an extra meatiness to it.  The pork jowl was a bit spongy, but in a good way.  Lastly, we had the obligatory Pork Chop Bun, but at the Studio City Casino.  It was okay, but please do your self a favour and eat one at a legit place instead.  So there you have it, some random eats in Macau.

The Good:
- Those tarts are pretty legit
- Almond cookies are good, not sure if I'd line up for them
- The jerky is also available in HK

The Bad:
- Go get a real pork chop bun, not from the casino food court (LOL)

Mei Jan Hong

On my way out of Aberdeen Centre after a meal at Saboten (where I was still hungry...), I wanted to hit up Saint Germain for some pastries. I was walking towards H-Mart when some beef jerky caught my attention. No really, it really was beef jerky (for those who thought this was some inappropriate joke). We're not talking about he prepackaged stuff found at T&T, rather, it was the fresh stuff. Similar to Bee Kim Heng out in Vancouver, Mei Jan Hong in Aberdeen prepares freshly-made Singaporean beef jerky. For those who are unfamiliar with this style of beef "jerky", it is sweeter and generally more moist than the stuff you see at Costco. Furthermore, the ones you find at Bee Kim Heng and Mei Jan Hong are grilled. Think along the same lines at candied salmon (speaking of which, they have salmon jerky here too).

This time I only stuck to the basics and got a pound each of the Beef and Pork Jerky. I also got them in 2 different textures as well - firm and soft. Furthermore, you can choose the spice level too. One last option is to either have them as ready-to-eat or vacuum-packed for extended shelf life. The first thing I noticed was the smaller amounts of charring on the meat compared to Bee Kim Heng. For me, that goes a long way adding more caramelization and smokiness to the meat. With that being said, the jerky was still quite good. Naturally, it was more sweet than savoury, yet it still had those elements as well. I actually preferred the spicy firm version since it had more texture and different flavour notes. The soft jerky is good too, I just find it sweeter (probably due to the higher moisture content). Not sure why they have such a low rating on Urbanspoon though. I thought it was pretty solid stuff.

The Good:
- Lots of options
- Hey, it's a party in your mouth (um...)

The Bad:
- Not unique to Mei Jan Hong, but it ain't cheap to eat jerky