Cafe de Macau, Haymarket Chinatown

EDIT November 2010: Cafe de Macau has closed. It has been replaced with Yummy Chinese BBQ

I'm not sure exactly when Cafe de Macau opened, but one day there was once a travel agency and then when I next walked past, it had suddenly become a Macauese eatery.



After less than a month of my first noticing its arrival, we headed here for lunch last week. It was packed. We were lucky to get one of the last large benches, sharing our table with six other diners. By 1.00pm there was a queue of ten people waiting outside the motion-sensor glass door.

Over one hundred people filled the cafeteria-like space, a long room filled with modern white chairs and tables. The open kitchen could be spotted down one end, a bar overflowing with used glasses down the other. Red beams dotted with spotlights overhead make the room seem even longer, and bored diners can always look up at the plasma screens that broadcast Chinese programmes.


Pumpkin soup (complimentary with the lunch special)

One glance at the menu and we can start to see why this place is so popular. $8.30 gets you a dish from a list of thirteen. Also included is the daily soup and you can add a hot drink for 50c.

We place our orders and within seconds, a waiter arrives with two huge bowls of soup. It's pumpkin soup, thick, sweet and starchy with the grit of added potato.


Hong Kong style tea mixed with coffee (50c with lunch special)

I'd always wrinkled my nose whenever my mother talked of tea mixed with coffee. "Everyone drinks it like that in Hong Kong" she'd told me. It never appealed, but it's funny how when it appears on a menu, I'm happy to try it.

A few sips later and I'm still not convinced. It has the bitterness of strong instant with a faint taste of tea.


Baked pork chop with rice $8.30 (includes soup)

Our dishes arrive as we're finishing our soup. B has ordered the baked pork chop - a crumbed pork chop coated in a thick sludge of sweet-and-sour like tomato sauce.


Baked Portuguese chicken with rice $8.30 (includes soup)

I've ordered the baked Portuguese chicken, thinking that if you're going to eat at a Macauese eatery, you are obliged to try something that reflects its colonial history.

Chopped pieces of chicken leg are bathed in a mild and sweet yellow curry sauce. There are bits of carrot, a few slices of Spanish olive and a slice of spicy chorizo that is dusted with coconut. Although fragrant and visually inviting, I find the curry is very mild, bordering on bland and in urgent need of salt.

Both of us are struggling with the enormous portions though. I can barely even finish the chicken, let alone the mountain of rice underneath. The starch-rich soup we'd both eaten may have also had something to do with our reduced stomach capacity.

There are benefits to communal tables, as we sticky beak at the dishes arriving around us. A female diner next to us is having the stewed duck with rice, a huge maryland of duck that looks very inviting. Two diners along and another female is having the stewed duck served in a bowl of soup filled with slippery white noodles.

Next to me a plate of spaghetti bolognaise arrives, thick spaghetti noodles topped with a dollop of bolognaise and served with a side of garlic bread. Her friend is having the Hainan chicken, boiled and served with rice and a saucer of ginger shallot oil.

Around us we spot a plate of the Macauese fried rice, a beef noodle stir fry and plates of Singapore noodle. Also on the menu are the grilled fish fillet in sweet corn sauce, Malay curry chicken (HOT! it warns on the menu), combination fried noodles, Buddhist delight and the most intriguing-sounding Russian beef with rice.


Homemade Portuguese custard tart $1.60

We are so full that have to order our Portuguese custard tart takeaway. The pastry is super crispy but a tad oily I think, the custard is sweet and eggy. It tastes like a cross between a Chinese custard tart and a traditional Portuguese custard tart.



Lunch specials are served from 11.30am-3.00pm. They also have afternoon tea sets served from 3pm-5pm. Along with your tea or coffee, small meal options include a sweet bun, japanese-style udon or portuguese-style chicken fettucine. Prices start from $5.00.

Breakfast sets are served from 10.00am-11.15am and cost $5.90. Of the six choices, the ox tongue with baked beans and hash brown sounds like a must-try to me.


Cafe De Macau New Generation Eatery

EDIT November 2010: Cafe de Macau has closed. It has been replaced with Yummy Chinese BBQ

761 George Street, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9280 2800


Open 7 days 10.00am-11.00pm