When you think of Macau, you would associate this former Portuguese controlled region for the glamour of Las Vegas. Except Macau has a fantastic dining scene from fine to street food like its neighbor Hong Kong.
On the fine dining spectrum, 8 at Grand Lisboa Hotel is a glamorous 3* Michelin rated restaurant (since 2014. up to its current list for 2016) in Macau. It’s a very sleek restaurant that does serve the best dim sum I ever ate. Ever since that having 8’s dim sum, every other dim sum meal didn’t match up the deliciousness of what we had and even the presentation.
When you enter through the automatic doors of the entrance there’s a short corridor that make you think (optically) that you’re heading to a fish pond since there’s holograms displaying of goldfish on the floor. By the time you are at restaurant’s dining room, it’s gorgeous and sexy. A large crystal encrusted ball with chains of crystals drop from the ceiling, and the opulent black marble floor with gold mother of pearl inlay.
We started off with our pots of fine oolong tea and the kitchen surprised us with an amuse bouche of dried braised abalone with a chip bowl of filled with stir fried minced beef. The abalone was about as large as a person’s thumb (rarely ever given such a delicacy at any fine dining restaurant) and it was superbly cooked. The abalone was so tender and flavorful. The minced beef was also tasty with the touch of oyster sauce and vegetables and the crunchy chip for texture.
Our order of shu mai topped with abalone was sublime. The abalone was cooked to perfection and the shu mai was flavorful and juicy. Together they were amazing with the distinctive sweetness of the abalone with the pork filling worked wonderfully.
The steamed beef meatballs with dried tangerine peel (陳皮) was the best version we had by far. The beef was light yet substantial enough and the dried tangerine peel’s flavor was noticeable on the background and wasn’t bitter.
When you do get the goldfish shaped steamed crystal blue shrimp dumpling (蝦餃), you can’t help but be in awe of how adorable they look (even the hedgehog buns seen below). Once you get over how cute these dumplings look, it tastes amazing. The shrimp was sweet and has its distinctive crunch and the dumpling skin was thin and supple.
These hedgehog shaped Chinese barbecue pork buns were special not just because they are cute. These were unique from its cooking technique of having it steamed first then gently pan fried on the bottom to have a delicate crunchy texture. (It’s quite ingenious.) The bread itself was fluffy and was thinly rolled. The filling was flavorful and had a good ratio of roast pork meat.
We also had the half roast suckling pig stuffed with sticky rice. This baby pig was roasted to a gorgeous mahogany lacquer and was stuffed with the delectable sticky rice. The waitress will slice your pig table side and serve you that first and take the remainder to the kitchen to have it chopped for you. The pork was insanely tender and moist with a crisp crackling skin and the rice made it substantial.
We were presented with petit fours at the end of this meal – demitasse cups of milk tea a rosette of coconut milk pudding topped with coconut meat. I would drink gallons of that luxuriously creamy milk tea (if it were a touch less sweet). The coconut pudding was delicious and provided a delicate sweetness to finish the meal wonderfully.
If 8 was in New York City, I would be their regular client since service was very approachable and professional. The food was the best Cantonese dim sum I ever had (even compared to the 3* Michelin Lung King Heen in Hong Kong, in my opinion) and the whimsical touches on some of their dishes made it appealing to eat. The luxe, comfortable dining room almost makes you want to stay and linger (that’s if you don’t have anything else on your day’s agenda).
To view more photos of this visit, please view the photo set or the gallery below:
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Table 8
Grand Lisboa Hotel
Website
2 Av. de Lisboa
Macau
Phone:+853 8803 7788