Macau: Gosto at the Galaxy Hotel

All the major hotels in Macau shamelessly exhibit quite a lot of grandiose and bombast, and the one that we stayed at, the Galaxy hotel, fits that description snugly. I can’t say that I really liked the over-the-top showyness…it made everything seem soul-less and man-made. That’s my opinion anyways.

For our evening meal in Macau we decided on Portuguese/Macanese food at Gosto. We arrived at around 7:30pm but the place was still pretty empty. The setting was cozy but a bit dim.

Appetizer sampler plate w/ fried nuggets of stuff!

For our appetizer we ordered the combo plate, which basically consisted of three types of fried foodstuffs. Even though I tend to avoid fried foods, I must say that the fillings in these were pretty decent. The plate included mashed potato-fish cake, some fried sausage, and…argh, something else that I can’t quite remember! Oh wells, that’s what I get for procrastinating on blog entries…

Stewed pork feet with kidney beans and cabbage

Ok, hopefully my memory serves me better with the entrees. We shared two entrees, my dad and I: the stewed pork feet with beans and chicken with puri-puri sauce. I didn’t really like the stewed pork feet much cause the meat didn’t quite attain that fall-off-the-bone and melt-in-your-mouth consistency. Maybe another 15 minutes in the heat would have been nice. The tomato-ey broth was decent: slightly spicy without overwhelming the pork flavour.

Whole (caged-in factory-tortured) chicken with puri-puri sauce

The chicken with puri-puri sauce, like the previous entree, could have been improved upon. I have to say, though, that even though I still have no idea what “puri-puri” is, the thin sauce was pretty amazing. Tangy and salty and spicy, it accompanied everything on the plate really well! Sadly, the chicken hailed from the factory-raised variety, with the signature floury texture and tasteless white meat. That really dragged down what otherwise would have been a great dish. Disappointing!

Yeah, actually, I’m curious, do most people out there mind eating factory-raised chicken as I do?