Immaculate Infatuation

“Look for the red lantern,” instructs the Macao Trading Co. website. This is how you will know you have reached your destination – the Portuguese colony of Macao circa 1952, “a fugitive’s heaven from which there is no turning back.” Awesome. We’re apparently having dinner at Universal Studios tonight.

Last week, we went out on an Immaculate Infatuation blind date. A mutual friend introduced us to two food enthusiasts with whom we share similar tastes and interests, Miss Info and Heather Park. Team Infatuation suggested Macao Trading Co. for dinner based on some recent hype and the promise of an interesting “Chinese meets Portuguese” meal. A Thursday dinner went in the books and we hit the town feeling it. We met our partners in crime at the bar, hit it off immediately, and sat down at our table ready to get into some serious eating.

This review wrote itself so fast; I think I have enough material to make it a three part series. First of all, Macao is a huge scene … everyone in the house is either on an early in the game date, or starting off their night before they hit Pink Elephant. Second, the place is essentially a theme restaurant. There must have been a yard sale after the last Indiana Jones movie and the owners of Macao cleaned out every prop that Planet Hollywood didn’t already scoop up. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised to see a monkey in a shriner’s hat come out and bus the table. The food and service were right about on par with a downtown Ruby Foo’s. We ordered a lot from the menu, many of the dishes suggested by our waiter, and nearly everything was overcooked, over seasoned, and overrated. The shining stars from our meal were the chicken dumplings, and you can get five of those for a dollar a few blocks north on Canal Street. Moral of the story? Next time we let our new friends pick the restaurant.

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What an incredible disaster. Look up The Hindenburg on the internet and you will get an idea of the special kind of catastrophe our recent visit to Shang was.

Having heard some good things, Team Infatuation headed out on a rainy Monday night for further investigation. We made a reservation and arrived on time to an empty bar and an obviously slow restaurant – yet we were told to wait at the bar for our table. Fair enough. I understand the concept of not seating too many tables in a waiter’s section, kitchen capacity, or whatever – even though we had a reservation. After about fifteen minutes, we asked the host what the deal was and were reluctantly seated. We sat down and could hear a pin drop. Maybe a quarter of the tables were occupied, and judging by the complete absence of audible conversation, everyone was either angry or afraid of the staff. No waiter or busboy visited the table for about ten minutes, and throughout the evening we had to ask someone to find our server three times to rectify various mishaps.

Read the food rundown for the rest of the story, but the service was a joke, and this place is not cheap. Also, they will tell you it’s “family style”, which is perfect if you are family of exactly two, you are rich, and you hate food.

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