St. Roque 34 Cafe in Macau

Note: Not in HK, but Macau's close enough, easy to get to and this place is delicious and not well known.

A place we stumbled into after our reservation at Albergue 1601 was not honored. Were told on the phone that no reservations were taken. Arrived to a near empty restaurant around 1130am on a Sunday and were told  it was full. Apparently full of bookings (didn't they say they don't take them?) and despite our efforts to say that we were told no bookings were taken on the phone...

Walked around nearby charming area and came across St. Roque 34 Cafe. Small, charming place and easy to miss. Ordered chicken stew, fish curry, croquettes and a "hamburger." Croquettes (pictured below) are minced cod and deep fried. Crispy and light outside, moist and flavorful inside. Perfect. Chicken stew and fish curry flavorful and full of different layers of spices though without overdoing it. Not Asian style and worked well with both rice and bread. "Hamburger" was the star, 2 patties which appeared to be pan fried, with crisp edges on the outside, but moist, tasty inside and not heavy. Was not beef, tasted actually like Indian-style tuna cutlets mom used to make but apparently (we found out later) was pork. Oops. Very tasty and a mistake worth making. Repeatedly. Was topped with a dollop of a sort of thousand island-like dressing sauce on which sat a fresh shrimp. Served with salad. A must try. Lots of stuff on menu needs 24 hours advanced notice but looks tasty.

MC/Visa accepted (I think - we used cash)
Reservations accepted

HKD/MOP 150-200 per person 

Rua S. Roque, N. 34, R/C Macau (near Igreja de. S. Lazaro)
澳門聖祿杞街34號文輝大廈地下. 
 +853 2835 4011 / +853 6640 8385

Phone transition

To add to the previous post - just an illustration (below) regarding why I had to go through a phone transition. 

Gluten Free Meal

Dinner

First - apologies for the poor photo quality. Currently in the middle of a phone transition courtesy of my clumsyness (or fat fingers). 12 days ago, I may or may not have dropped my phone at a crosswalk, whereupon said phone fell on the street as the traffic light turned green, 4 cabs ran over it. R.I.P. Anyhow...

Best part of meal was the rice cakes. Says a lot. Rice dry and overcooked, chicken dry and flavorless. Bell peppers edible, mushrooms the kind of standard stuff often seen in airline breakfast omelets. Fruit may have been past its prime... As expected everything was very bland. Funny thing, lady sitting next to me had low calorie meal which had the same chicken and mushrooms but different veggies and of course, the ubiquitous airline roll and some interesting looking dessert.
 

Date of travel: October 2013
Flight: CX 636 - SIN (Singapore) - HKG (Hong Kong)

Fruit Platter Meal

Dinner

As expected...Though no big expectations, variability of fruit quality was disappointing. Dragon fruit pedestrian (ie. more than ok for airline food), pineapple nearly inedible, large slices of melon (bottom left) actually quite tasty. Real disappointment was that small slices of melon (above left) were tasteless though what looks like the slice of a cocktail grapefruit (ok tasting) tried to help it out. Above center, was a canned apricot and canned pear which were the most disappointing. Mostly because being served canned syrupy fruit rather than the real stuff (even if its just an apple or banana or something) was lame. Roll and butter were standard.

Date of travel: September 2013
Flight: CX 505 - NRT (Tokyo Narita) - HKG (Hong Kong)

Bland Meal on Cathay Pacific

Dinner

True to its name. Was, well, tasteless. Main of a piece of rubbery, flavorless and sort of dry chicken, with a decent carrot mash (added some salt) and bog standard steamed broccoli and some mushy chips/fries. Don't get why airlines serve fries, really. Usually want them to be crisp or have some edge to them, rather than be soggy... Fruit and roll same as with other meals served on board. Instead of cup of Haagen Dazs ice cream, which standard meals got, was served some sweet tofu instead (on right side of picture). Was pretty tasty and I felt good about myself since it was healthier (yay?). Overall, not a meal worth special ordering.

Date of travel: September 2013
Flight: CX 542 - HKG (Hong Kong) - HND (Tokyo Haneda)

Diabetic Meal on Cathay Pacific

Described on CX's website as "With complex carbohydrates, high fibre, low fat and calories, it is suitable for both non-insulin and insulin dependent diabetics." Hmm.

Lunch

White bean salad with some tomato/cucumber, edible, needed some salt. Roll was a sort of multi-grain standard airline fare, though served with a veggie spread/margarine rather than butter. Main of plain grilled chicken was surprisingly moist if not otherwise flavorless, on the side were purple rice and steamed broccoli. Added some salt for flavor. Full confession - I do not like broccoli (sorry mom). Dessert of grapes and cocktail grapefruit/orange slices - nothing special but nothing I'd object to. Slight concern due to the salad dressing (green container on right)'s first ingredient was "high fructose corn syrup" - didn't try it.

Overall, not good, but not a terrible meal.

Dinner

Cucumber and pepper salad with cherry tomatoes on a bed of lettuce. Pretty tasteless. Roll/spread/salad dressing similar to that of lunch. Main of spiced and herb crusted (I think) chicken with steamed/boiled green beans and a spiced black bean and corn quinoa. Chicken was dry, and overspiced, beans were blah as one would expect (added a little bit of salt). Highlight was the spiced quinoa, had right amount of kick and nice texture to it. Was lovely to eat. Dessert was a few pieces of melon and cantaloupe - nothing fresh and a gluten free/wheat free, lemon cookie that was dense and artificial tasting (despite using fruit juices as sweeteners).

Overall, lunch was better but the quinoa was genuinely nice to eat.

Date of travel: September 2013
Flight: CX 807 - ORD (Chicago O'Hare) - HKG (Hong Kong)

Special Meals on Airlines

As most probably haven't noticed, I haven't posted in a while since I've been traveling a lot and its, well, tough to write about places in Hong Kong when one's not there.

Like many others I know, I fly a fair bit. And like most folks I know, I too, dread airline meals or skip them. I booked a flight a while back and when prompted to see if I wanted to request a special meal (Vegetarian, Kosher etc), I figured, "why not have a little fun?"

Looking at Cathay Pacific's website (and this is not meant to be an advertisement - I just happen to fly them a lot), they offer 20 special meals ranging from "Bland" meal to "Vegetarian Oriental" meal - with a bunch of choices in between that I have never heard of/thought of or can't really explain.

I plan to try every one of Cathay Pacific/Dragonair's special meals in the coming months/years. I will use as similar format as with restaurants. Keep posts brief, with 1-2 photos. I will also include the flight number, month/year of travel, meal (ie. breakfast, lunch or dinner). Unless otherwise mentioned, all meals are in economy class, and I drink water with all of my meals.

I hope folks enjoy this. As with restaurants, if anyone else has any experiences with special meals on airlines, please do feel free to send them over and I will be happy post them with due credit given