# Where to Find Echoes of Portugal in Macau > Discover where to find echoes of Portugal in Macau: architecture, cuisine and colonial heritage in the heart of Asia. Learn the city's best spots. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/de-znaity-vidholosky-portuhalii-v-makao/ - Language: en - Published: 2024-10-17 - Categories: Culture, Historic Sites, Restaurants, Tours, China, Food & Drinks --- I never expected to find myself in Lisbon, on a lovely, sloping block bearing one of that city's most iconic names: Rua das Janelas Verdes. The Street of Green Windows. Wandering through the colonial center of Macau in southern China, I stumble on a tiny sign carrying the very same name. Only this "Janelas Verdes" is a dark passageway less than 50 feet long, used mostly for parking bicycles. Hunting for echoes of a five-century cultural imprint, I wonder whether there's any advantage in knowing what to look for in a place that first sparked my curiosity about the Portuguese world. I certainly don't find it in the obvious places: the ruins of the Church of St. Paul, say, or the main Senado Square, the old fortifications and ramparts now crowded with day-trippers, the garish displays of paper lanterns and the endless rows of shops selling pressed pork jerky. And I plan to steer well clear of the Portuguese restaurants name-checked in every guidebook, many of them dressed up in a fake-luxury style to please the tourists. Granted, any place that serves bacalhau, the salt cod the Portuguese prepare a thousand ways, or the spicy chouriço sausage, has to at least partly fit the bill. But many of them are run by Macanese, and they offer the empire's multicultural specialties, like "African Chicken" or "Minchi" (minced beef), that are practically unknown in Portugal itself. ## The Portuguese Bookshop ![](/storage/image/prev/august-article-image-120-1-2024.jpg) Starting at the central Ou Mun café, once a favorite gathering spot for homesick expats, I find a few fitting pastry specialties. But the Portuguese owner, and spirit, is nowhere to be seen. And when I ask for a coffee, along with a "bica," the usual way the Portuguese order a strong shot, the Filipina waitress wonders whether I mean an "espresso." I find comfort around the corner at the Portuguese Bookshop (16 R. de São Domingos), one stubbornly surviving outpost of the Iberian language and obsession. There's plenty of the surreal poetry of Pessoa, Portugal's reigning yet reclusive literary star, along with the finest photo books on Macau, and scholarly works in English make their way in here too. There's something quintessentially Portuguese in the soft, unassuming manner of the bearded young man behind the counter. There's none of the arrogance of a "cultural representative" here, but rather a fatalistic surrender to a life in the middle of Macau's strange, dreamlike stir. ## The House of Portugal Strolling along the far end of São Domingos, this main shopping street packed with sneaker shops, I happen to spot a small sign beside a baroque-carved door frame announcing the sale inside of "Pão Alentejano." From my time in Lisbon I know these are the humped loaves of ultra-white bread the Portuguese love. Once inside, I realize the bread actually comes from the Portuguese Bakery (Beco do Sal No. 24) near the port of Macau, already closed for the day. But I've stumbled into the regular haunt of at least half the Portuguese in town. Named "Lusitanus," after the Latin name for Portugal meaning "land of light," it's the main dining room of the House of Portugal (26 R. de Pedro Nolasco da Silva), housed since 2003 in a mini-palace directly across from the Portuguese consulate. ![](/storage/image/prev/august-article-image-120-2-2024.jpg) The core menu here is an exact copy of what you'd find in every little corner tasca (a simple eatery) back home. These are the real, unfaked dishes: bifanas (pork-steak sandwiches), pregos (the same with beef), fluffy bacalhau croquettes, thin steaks topped with a fried egg. I go for my Portuguese wife's usual lunch: breaded fish cakes (panados) served with tomato rice, and cooked better than in Lisbon. It pairs perfectly with a decent white Portuguese wine (not the inevitable cheap vinho verde, but a genuine find for just 20 patacas, $2.50). They even serve Super Bock, a Portuguese beer, and Caramulo, a Portuguese bottled water. Resting at a white-painted iron table beneath the creaking wooden beams of an unjustifiably high ceiling, I strike up a conversation with two Portuguese migrants at the next table. Both architects, they're troubled that their work involves new construction rather than preservation. "But," laments one of them, named Lília Silva, "it's so much easier to preserve buildings than a way of life." For the latter, they suggest I head out to the black sands of the remote Hac Sa beach. "Sun and sand, that's us," they confess, and I understand, having seen how Lisbon, a great European capital, empties out completely every summer weekend for the nearest beaches. ## The Church of St. Lazarus Instead, I decide to keep wandering the back streets and soon come to a beautifully preserved three-block enclave around the Church of St. Lazarus. Surrounded by boxy concrete apartment buildings, this area stands out for its mosaic streets laid in curving patterns, its murals and galleries, its small squares shaded by massive flame trees. Asking for directions, I run into a fiercely lively 81-year-old woman, with long light-brown curls but Chinese features, who turns out to be a Macanese graduate of the University of Lisbon. She explains the church is named for Lazarus because lepers were once cared for here, perhaps the reason it was spared from the bulldozers? "Young people today, they know nothing about the history we lived through, our culture," she laments. ## Santa Casa da Misericórdia ![](/storage/image/prev/august-article-image-120-3-2024.jpg) At the far upper end of this unique, yet rarely touristed oasis, Calçada de São Lázaro, posters announce art exhibitions, and a display of balloons strung across the beautiful camphor trees draws me into a stunning courtyard. This is the elegantly transformed Santa Casa da Misericórdia, a former charity home for elderly women with a 400-year history, now painted orange and set off by a row of black shutters. The main attraction here is Albergue 1601 (Calçada da Igreja de São Lázaro nº 8), a kind of Portuguese meeting place for Macau's few literary types, with two floors of stone-and-wood atmosphere, plus assorted grandfather clocks and menus (and a wall of wines on display) that suggest it's truer to form than most. Never mind that one Portuguese man warns me to eat only where they serve cozido à portuguesa (a hint: look for one or two in the village of Taipa), a hearty stew. Across the way, someone with more than a passing knowledge of Portugal has fitted out the glowing matchbox of a shop called Mercearia (Calçada da Igreja de São Lázaro nº 8), whose symbol is the quintessentially Portuguese sardine. It's stocked with retro soaps in art-deco wrappers, wooden charms of the Barcelos rooster and sardines, and genuine tinned fish prepared with special care. There are also homemade fig jams from the Azores. ## Caravela Even though I've already had my fill of coffee, I decide to follow the architects' advice and check out Caravela (Shop 7H, G/F, Edf. Kam Loi, R. do Comandante Mata e Oliveira, Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro), a popular meeting spot Portuguese enough to dare call itself a "pastelaria" (from a country where pastry shops and cafés are one and the same). I have to ask several rickshaw drivers before I find it in a small alley literally in the shadow of the gleaming golden towers of the Wynn, MGM and Lisboa Grande resorts, built on the backs of baccarat revenue. With a few tables out on the street under an awning, bare concrete walls inside, and a gleaming bar fitted with a display case holding a typical, if minimal, selection of Portuguese sweets like queijadas and real pastéis de nata, not to be confused with the British knockoffs sold everywhere as "egg tarts," Caravela matches exactly my companions' description of the "typical gathering place somewhere along the country road of every small Portuguese town." The people here also look like the usual elegant but unsmiling cast of characters in a place where, as Lília Silva put it, "everyone knows everyone," sipping their strong coffee with an almost sacred devotion, and perhaps their shattered schemes of fortune in the East as well. And maybe that's about as Portuguese as it gets.