Macau. Rua do Campo
Rua do Campo (水坑尾街) is a busy street situated east from the old and west from the new part of Macau.
I set my foot in this area to find a restaurant that I have read about, A Vencedora 坤記餐室. Macau is a quite expensive place, particularly for a gourmet. You can visit the city without spending a dime, as opportunities for freeloading abound: free shuttles between casinos mean that you don’t need to pay for buses and the small size of Macau means that you don’t need to stay overnight (and instead get back to Zhuhai, Guangzhou or Hong Kong). Most museums are free, temples and churches are also not ticketed. You can save on food by packing something into your lunchbox. But Macanese cooking is one of a kind, so you should definitely try it. Many restaurants are expensive. I wanted to write “ridiculously expensive”, but it is actually not so ridiculous given that we are talking about gambling haven, the Las Vegas of Asia. There are some cheaper options, but this is mostly for snacking. That’s why it was thrilling to find the golden middle – a simple yet serious, well-established restaurant serving authentic regional fare at a reasonable price. “Portuguese set meal” is a great deal here. I was served minchi (免治), a local classic with stir-fried minced meat. It came in the probably most common incarnation: with diced potatoes, served on rice and topped with a fried egg. De-li-cious.
I left the restaurant in high spirits and walked further down the Rua do Campo. I saw an entry gate that looked intriguing, went up the staircase, and found that a hip event is going on, “Maze Market vol.6 x Midnight Macau.” The three floors where full of young people browsing through designer items on sale: artworks, clothes, perfumes, various gadgets, you name it. I’m not sure how this space looks like when such events are not happening, but I guess that some cafes and shops are permanent. If you know or if you are in the neighborhood and can check, let me know. The building is called “百老汇中心文创村.”
The several streets immediately east from Rua do Campo form a neighborhood called Horta e Mitra (Bairro da Horta da Mitra, 雀仔園坊). I passed by and photographed two small shrines here. One is the Foc Tac shrine 福德祠,
and the other is Lo Pan Sin Fu shrine (魯班師傅廟 / 仁德堂公所).
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