A visit to fabulous Macau!

MACAU – I’ve been in Macau since Tuesday afternoon upon the invitation of the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO), which asked me to do a feature on my TV talkshow Straight from the Sky as our first show for our ninth year celebration. Yes, this week, we are celebrating a milestone as it is our ninth year on cable TV and proudly we are the longest talkshow ever in Cebu.

Like most Filipinos, I’ve been to Hong Kong oh so many times that I have already forgotten how many times I’ve been there. But I have never made a trip to Macau, although it was always on the back of my mind and I just never got the time to make a trip there… more so that they have already gotten a new reputation of being the Las Vegas of Asia.

If there was anything of interest to me about the Macau of the past, it was the Macau Grand Prix where they held car and motorcycle races all on the same track and on the same day. A long time ago, when I would visit a good friend, Marietta Cuenco, now Mrs. Cuyegkeng, in her house in Makati, we would often walk by the house of her neighbor named Dodjie Laurel who became a Filipino racing icon for winning many auto races in Macau. I was saddened that he met his death in the Macau Grand Prix and that Macau had a place of honor for Dodjie Laurel.

So last Tuesday, my wife Jessica and I, together with my SkyCable crew Mary Ann Segers, Albert Dajab and Chris del Mar, took Cathay Pacific flight CX 920 from the Mactan International Airport to Chep Lap Kok in Hong Kong. Yes, the flight to Hong Kong was full which shows you that even in these harsh financial times, people are still traveling. Today, traveling to Macau is very convenient. Before when you landed in Hong Kong, you had to go to the downtown area to take the fast ferry to Macau. Not anymore.

When we got into the Hong Kong Airport, we merely transferred to the bus terminal that took us to the Fast Ferry Terminal at the end of the runway for the 50-minute ride to Macau on board a TurboJet fastcraft. I know that some of those fast ferries were bought from the FBMA shipyard in Balamban, Cebu and they’re still looking good as new!

When we got in at the Macau Ferry Terminal, we were met by Engr. Joao Manuel Costa Antunes of the MGTO who doubled as our tour guide. He billeted us at the luxurious SkyWorld Hotel and the surprise I got was there were still a lot of tourists there, despite the financial crunch. The bigger surprise was that Charlie Chaplin met me with a hug right at the hotel lobby. Well, he was actually Christopher, an actor/performer who was dressed up like Charlie Chaplin to entertain the arriving guests.

Later in the evening, Engr. Antunes brought us to Tapia District to sample authentic Portuguese cuisine. The short drive to the restaurant gave us beautiful shots of the Macau night skyline. Yes, it glowed just like the beautiful hotels along the Las Vegas Strip, but the difference was, the hotels were not surrounded by desert sand, but by seawater.

Finally we got into the narrow road to Antonio’s, the restaurant owned by Chef Antonio Neves Coelho. It was actually a very small and quaint restaurant along the main road of Rua Correia Da Silva on Rua Dos Mercadores (Merchants Road) corner Rua Dos Negociantes (Traders Road), which is not only a member of the Chaine Des Rotisseurs, but more importantly, is also highly recommended by Michelin, that discriminating French magazine that gives information on the best of the best restaurants in the world. While I expected to see a Las Vegas-style buffet, on the contrary I got a taste of Old World or authentic Portuguese cuisine, which was to say the least, a very pleasant culinary experience.

Yes, we started with had a huge slice of Pata Negra, washed with Prova Reglia white vintage wine, and Bacalhau fishcake, Chourico assado, appetizer fresh prawns and Baby Back Ribs. And after our sumptuous meal, we had a taste of Gingha Licor wine that Chef Antonio put on a wine cask for added flavor. But the more interesting wine that Chef Antonio offered us was kind of dramatic in a sense as he got an old Japanese sword and quickly chopped off the bottle’s neck with one swing and the Portuguese bubbly spurted out of the bottle! Hmm, that wine tasted better than champagne!

The Macau that I thought of visiting in the past turned out to be more than what I bargained for as we not only saw the old historic St. Paul’s Cathedral or at least its facade that symbolizes Macau, but there were many other churches as well. Macau, after all, is Catholic just like the Philippines so we do share a similar heritage. But a new Macau emerged when Las Vegas hoteliers invaded it some years back and put up the world’s biggest casino, the Venetian Macau Hotel, Wynn’s and MGM Grand Hotel. The Lisboa Grand Hotel though is just as grand. We’ll write about these in our next column.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.