Claudia クラウディア (Ah Cow)

Saw some good & bad comments of this restaurant in a Macau chat forum so gave it a try for myself...

The paper on the window next to the main door noted ‘famous for grilled food’… ok, no harm trying!

We sat at the bar overseeing the sushi chef preparing his numerous orders. The raw sashimi in the cold display case looked so-so,  not “very” fresh but what do you expect in Macau!?  Let’s see what we both ate:

Akagai Sashimi 赤貝–  (Ark Clam) Quite a big portion as you can see from the pic the shell was quite big… tender texture, not too chewy, no fish odour, quite fresh, quite good 

A petit bowl of Marinated Thinly Sliced Lotus Roots 蓮藕薄切 - The sauce somehow reminded me of a small Japanese restaurant in Richmond Hill (16^th/ Leslie Ave.)… surprisingly good!

While waiting for the rest of our food to arrive, the “no smile, no talk, no facial expression” chef took more than 30min to finish up the medium sized sashimi platter for another table!!  We were surprised it took him soooooooooo long  to do this cuz we’re used to see this being done in 15minutes or less  in Toronto!!! Couldn’t imagine how long it’ll take him to do a huge ship of mixed sushi & sashimi platter!!!

Mixed Tempura 雜錦天富羅 – Totally disappointed!!  They used regular batter to deep fry the food...   the appearance looked as if I was eating fried food at home!!  

Cold Soba with Tempura 天富羅冷麵 – Don’t know why they used tempura-batter for this one and not the previous dish!   The sweet soya sauce for the cold noodle was good, not too sweet, chilled just right… the noodle’s texture was just right… tempura was way better than the previous dish! Good ah!! 

Ginko 銀杏/白果… quite tasty, never expected it so good cuz normally eat this in sweet soup or regular chinese soup… chewy texture.

Chicken Kidney 雞腎… I don’t eat this kinna internal organs but I’m being told it’s just so-so.

Fish Skin 魚皮… not bad taste, chewy texture

Chicken Cartilage 雞軟骨… just so-so, personally preferred those deep fried ones in karaokes!! Hahaha

Chicken Skewer 雞肉串… quite tasty, marinated then grilled

Pork Skewer 豬肉串… quite tasty, marinated before girlled also

Soft Shell Crab Avocado Roll 軟殼蟹卷 - Avocado a bit rusty in colour, probably due to being out in the air too long  (as I’ve mentioned earlier, the sushi chef took quite long to make this dish!)… crispy soft shell crab… ok dish.

Location: Ajikura Japanese Restaurant, Rua de Londres S/N, Wan Yu Villas, R/C, Shop Q

味藏日本料理  倫敦街  環宇豪庭 地下 Q舖

Don’t know why it took me 5months to finally post this trip up!  Always kept on giving myself excuse as being busy but I must admit, if I don’t post this up anytime soon   I’m gonna forget the details (I’m sure I’ve already forgotten some details!!) and I have many gatherings I need to post!!

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31 May 2008   Saturday  Sunny

Time for another high school friends chit-chatting & eating trip. This time it was a whole day trip ~~ yes!  More chit-chatting time for a whole bunch of girls!!

Here’s what we ordered (I was busy snapping pics so my frds ordered these):

(top row L–R, names not too sure)

1.  Duck breast served cold – duck breast, my favorite… gelatin coated, very tender texture… yummy yummy yummy

2. Steamed vegetables – very crispy vege stalk… good… yummy yummy

3. Steamed chicken hand-stripped – I think it has a bit of Chinese wine… very juicy texture… served cold also

4. Sweet & sour fish – sprinkled with sesame… served cold… no fishy smell… bones were so small & crunchy u could swallow them just as they were nuts!! 

5. Soup of the day – some kind of fungus + chicken… very aromatic… quite good

(2^nd row L–R, names not too sure)

1.  Fish soup base noodles – freshly made noodles soak in fish soup base… very aromatic of the fish soup (some frds said it was too smelly of fish flavour)

but I thought it was acceptable

2.  Sichuan beef pot – we ordered just little spicy (this is normally a very spicy dish)… tender meat texture, not chewy… I enjoyed the big bean sprout a lot!!  Hahaha… Sauce was good on rice or just drink it up as soup!!

3. Sweet & sour pork - each piece had a small bone attached... good bite-size for an appetizer

4.  Tofu & mushroom casserole – Super smooth tofu… glides into your throat once it’s in your mouth!!  This dish goes well with white rice 

5.  Vege & pork fried rice – all vege & pork was finely diced thus making the whole dish looked like a big portion!! Rice was nicely done, not soggy, not too hard… can really say each rice had either vege or pork wrapped around!!!  Yummy yummy yummy

(3^rd fow L-R, names not too sure)

1. Tofu soup – same fish soup base as previously mentioned… but the most important thing to look for in this soup is the skillfulness of the chef’s usage of knife… just look at the finely cut tofu… it’s not just on the top to show off, it was the whole bowl’s tofu that was cut like that!! Amazing!!!  Pay the price just to look at this soup is really worth it!!

2. Shanghai-style pork dumpling -  soup inside each dumpling was super hot and flavourful… the dumpling skin was not thick (which is good)… bite-sized dumpling always a good thing!!

3. Fish soup – we couldn’t get enough of this soup that we had to order an extra bowl  hahahaha

4. Desserts – sweet baked dumplings… some had lotus paste, some had red bean paste, and some had nuts inside

Bill came to approx RMB¥70-80per pax.

Location: Yi Garden Shangri-la Zhongshan, Guangzhou, China 

江南趣酒家  中山香格里拉大酒店

After some last minute snapping , we strolled around the hotel a bit and off we went to our next stop.

We then went to a street which our lovely driver told us there’s a good deal on handkerchiefs & towels. My goodness, what started out as 1frd buying... ended up all of us buying big & small towels!!!!   I bought 10 hand-sized handkerchiefs (for my 2 nieces) for just RMB¥2 each!!!  Yes, I bought 10 hankies for just 20bucks... and they were of good quality also!!  (forgot to take pics, hopefully we’ll go there next time and I’ll definitely take pic!)

We then went to a coffee shop  nearby to enjoy our afternoon tea. This coffee shop was very relaxing but their drinks were more on the sweet side.  The store was divided into 2 sections: ½ of it was the bakery and the other ½ was a relaxing cafe section with tons of magazines & sofas. Price was not expensive. Drinks were more on the sweeter side , even my cappuccino was on the sweet side! We rested in there for an hour and it was already time for our next stop.

Location: Morton Cafe 摩頓咖啡西餅店(中山)   中山市石岐逢源商業街4號樓

It was getting dark and we finally found our hot pot restaurant (we drove by earlier to make reservations). The ever famous Little Sheep Hot Pot Restaurant (Zhongshan branch). Price was not expensive either... well, compared to the same amount of food we ordered here and in Macau, this was definitely cheaper than in Macau!

How happier could we be? A whole bunch of girls + hot pot + tons of food on the table (2 kinds of beef, lamb, fish, chicken, etc.... can’t remember la!) + tons of laughters!!   Fortunately we were all "big eaters" thus making it possible for us to do these kinna "eating gathering" fiestas!!!

 

Can’t  wait  to  see  where  our  next  gathering  trip  will  take  us!!  Cheers!!