The Eight is not only the name of the
restaurant though, it is also its theme, alongside various representations of fish, which are also symbols of positive happenings. So all around the restaurant, you will meet fish and
eights in various shapes and places. Some will even pop up on your plate, but
let's get to that later. It's a stylish room that like the others in the Grand Lisboa does not leave you cold. You will either love or loathe this kind of decoration.
That this is no ordinary Cantonese
restaurant is made clear by the décor already. Not as grand as some others, nor
as kitschy, it is resolutely modern and quite smart. Its dark, kind of mysterious and a bit over the top as things are in Macau. From all of this, you would not be able to guess what kind of delicacies are coming your way once you sit down.
A glutton's paradise
If it might not be a very unusual thing to see the eight and the fish appear in the room here and there, it certainly is rare that a restaurant incorporates its symbols into the dishes. Here this is the case, with shrimp dumplings. What makes these river shrimp dumplings so noteworthy is their shape: they look like a little fish.
Very gimmicky you might say, but since they are made with high quality live shrimps, you'd be a fool to complain. It certainly are very tasty dumplings that have an unusually clean and precise flavour. Other dishes are not quite so much geared to fit the concept, but delicious nonetheless. Take the bizarrely-named "cholesterol sandwich". It's a piece of pork belly, rolled with foie gras. Could it get any more sinful? No, and not much more delicious neither. It's a glutton's paradise.
The same goes for their roast pork belly. This shows how much attention to detail goes into every bit here. The reason being the way in which each of the three various textures is exactly proportioned on the piece you are presented with. Thus you have a layer of fat, a layer of meat and that oh-so-lovely crispy skin. Finding a better rendition of this dish in Hong Kong or Macau must be a task that is nearly impossible.
On a different and more delicate side is a spiny lobster, cooked in black bean sauce. This dish doesn't only impress with a superbly cooked spiny lobster, but also because of the balance of the sauce. It is a wonderfully complex and powerful combination that makes it a moreish dish. Not overly heavy in terms of flavours, it has enough punch to counter the lobster's complex taste.
Like some of Hong Kong's best Cantonese restaurants, the food here is most balanced. It is cooking that uses less MSG than many better places around here do and that is something you can taste. For this fact, and the surprisingly good quality of produce you can find here, this restaurant deserves its 6 more than any other Chinese restaurant we have visited.
