Whenever our friends from abroad come to visit us in town, we always include our favorite local Macau snacks to have on the itinerary. On your next trip to Macau, you simply must have these snacks as they are also a great way to explore the city. Go on a foodie tour of Macau with a focus on these delicious local snacks!
Egg Tart
(See featured image above. Source: Pixabay)
No trip to Macau is really a trip without trying one of these famous tarts. The Egg tart is one of Macau’s must-try snacks! You can grab this piece of heaven in a tart at Lord Stow’s Bakery or Margaret’s Cafe e Nata. Its top is a caramelized egg custard filling like crème brulee that sits on a flakey, crunchy pastry tart (best eaten while it’s hot!), and they are also sold in boxes of six and are packaged for transport, making for a great gift to back home for family and friends.
Lord Stow’s Bakery 1 Rua do Tassara, Coloane, +853 2888 2534, www.lordstow.com
Margaret’s Cafe e Nata Kam Loi Building, 17B Rua do Comandante Mata e Oliveira, Macau, +853 2871 0032, www.facebook.com/Margarets-Café-e-Nata
Source: Pixabay
Almond Cookies
These cookies are handmade with the mixture being pressed into wooden molds firmly, then roasted over a charcoal oven, and finally slapped on a table ready to eat. Its texture is powdery and very fine, it will begin to crumble when you bite them. They might even remind you of Christmas shortbread cookies! The delicious cookies are one of Macau’s must-try snacks. You can find them in various shops lining the streets leading up to the city’s famous landmark, the Ruins of St. Paul’s, and they make perfect souvenirs to bring back home. Begin walking from St. Dominic’s square towards the ruins, and you will find many shops selling the cookies, including Pastelaria Koi Kei Bakery, which also sells our favorite meat jerky (see below). These deliciously addictive cookies cost MOP $18 per box.
Koi Kei Bakery, 23AA–23AB, Rua de S. Paulo, Macau, +853 2835 8230, www.koikei.com
Meat Jerky
Also known as “bak-kwa”, this is a Chinese savory-sweet dried meat prepared with spices, salt, sugar, and soy sauce which is similar to jerky but with a sweeter taste. It is most commonly made with beef and pork, but you can also find more exotic meats such as ostrich and boar. They also offer other different flavors such as BBQ or spicy. You can have a lot of free tastings at Pastelaria Koi Kei Bakery, the number one selling shop for 12 years straight. You can find it just down the streets from the Ruins of St. Paul’s, and be prepared to get overwhelmed with friendly employees waiting outside, eager to cut you a free sample with their giant scissors! You can also enjoy a free sample of their almond cookies. You will find employees carrying them around on giant rounded bamboo trays. These cost MOP $69–149 per pound depending on what flavor and what type of meat you choose.
Koi Kei Bakery, 23AA–23AB, Rua de S. Paulo, Macau, +853 2835 8230, www.koikei.com
Soft Tofu Tapioca Drink
This drink is one of our ultimate favorites because it reminds us of “taho” from the Philippines. It consists of soft tofu, brown sugar syrup with a hint of ginger, and tapioca pearls. We personally love this drink warm for tea time and it’ll be a great place to take a breather while on your quest to explore Macau’s local snack scene. You can find it after you pass all the fresh fruit stalls in the Three Lamps District to your left side where you will find a store selling warm chestnuts and a variety of bottled soy milk. It costs MOP $8 each.
Three Lamps District Rotunda Carlos da Maia, Macau
Bubble Tea
Having started in Taiwan, the bubble tea quickly spread throughout Southeast Asia, and it’s now one of this region’s most popular drink. There are numerous variations: from chai bubble tea to Thai latte, plain tea or fruit beverages, fat little tapioca bubbles sit at the bottom of your cup, and provide a pleasant chewy texture to your drink! Whether it’s your first time in Macau, or you’ve been around for some time, this is quite a popular drink. Besides the original milk tea flavor with bubbles, this tasty beverage has an array of flavors and toppings! The most known brands are Koi, Comebuy, Thailax, Gathering, and Share Tea. Not sure where to start? Check out our article on the Best Places for Bubble Tea in Macau and get slurping!
Curry Fish Balls
On the streets of Rua S. Domingos, you can find at least three stalls selling and cooking these street snacks of skewers. There are not only fish balls but beef balls, vegetables, squid balls, and many more! Just pick what you like and the street vendor will boil them for you and ask if you would want it spicy or not. Our friends would call them “Tusok tusok” because, in Tagalog, it literally means “to poke”. And that’s how you eat them; you just poke through them with a wooden stick and enjoy! But when our friends from Singapore came to visit Macau, they had something similar back home and they call it “Lok Lok”. Our personal favorite is the cheese balls. Don’t get too excited though! Let it cool down a bit before you take a bite, or else the melted cheese inside will burn your tongue. Take it from us, it does happen! These cost between MOP $5–11 per skewer and these stalls are easily found around town, mainly in the city center.
Yee Shun Dairy Company Milk Pudding
Cold or warm, this is an all-year perfect dessert kind of snack and one of Macau’s must-try local snacks. Served in-store and to go, it might be a bit pricier when compared to our other choices, but it is worth the try! Founded in Macau more than 100 years ago, Yee Shun Dairy Company has now spread to Hong Kong. Their stores are always full of tourists and locals buying it. There is also a variation with ginger in its recipe. Each individual bowl costs around MOP $35. Their main branch is located close to Senado Square, but they have expanded, and have several, mainly at Broadway Macau and some other places.
Yee Shun Dairy Company 381 Av. de Almeida Ribeiro, Macau, +853 2837 3104
Yau Kei Dragon’s Beard Candy
Yau Kei is a shop located in St. Lazarus district and serves one of the most traditional sweets in Macau: dragon’s beard candy. It’s called so because of how it looks–very thin white threads of sugar wrapping a mixture of crushed coconut and peanuts, plus sesame seeds. Crunchy and gooey at times, it’s a nice thing to try out if you’re into sweet and new things! The shop is also really nice, with all this history inside it; you can actually see the chef making these through a glass window. Check out our review on this place here.
Yau Kei Dragon’s Beard Candy 25 Calçada da Igreja de São Lázaro, Macau, +853 65889928
This article was originally written by Bel Faustino in March 2016 and updated by Leonor Sá Machado in February 2019.
