Sampling the Sister SAR

When we landed in sunny Macau, we had only one thing on our minds—food. We had already talked about the game plan on the ferry over. That is, how to eat our way across Macau in a single day. Our first stop was a super-secret dai pai dong all the way out in Ilha Verde at the northern part of the Macau Peninsula. Hidden in a nondescript alley by a local primary school and tucked beneath a cluster of trees with nothing but a small part of its green canopy peeking through, you’d think Liu Kei didn’t want to be found. But the really out-of-the-way location seems to be no obstacle for the eatery’s many fans; an endless stream of mopeds turn into the cobblestone parking lot and even in the sweltering heat, the mostly outdoor Liu Kei is packed with diners during lunch hours. But why take the long and winding road to get to this place? Because the food really is worth the pilgrimage. Its “open kitchen” does a mean pork bun—the bread roll is toasted to crispy perfection on the outside and sandwiches a hefty piece of juicy, near-fluffy pork. The curry chicken bun and the soupless lo mein also looked enticing but, not wanting to stuff ourselves already at our first pit stop, we got on the next bus back towards the city center.