It's early afternoon on a cloudy Saturday in Macau - not your typical day for a leisurely stroll - but in Taipa Island's city centre there's a long queue in front of Kok Li-hou's small eatery.
'Sometimes the queue crosses the street, with dozens and even hundreds of customers,' a local resident says.
The pavement is partly blocked by the small shop's tables, which are occupied by people eating something out of small, light brown paper bags. 'We're here because we heard this is the place for pork chop buns in Macau,' says Cheryl Tay, a Malaysian-Chinese tourist.
She's there with two friends and one mission: to try the famous pork chop buns, which consist of a pork chop fried (with the bone) and sandwiched in a bun.
'I was intrigued. In Malaysia everyone who had been to Macau said we have to come to this place to try the buns. We told our taxi driver we wanted to go to 'the pork chop bun place' and he brought us here without any questions,' says Tay.
The shop, named Cafe Tai Lei Loi Kei, opened 40 years ago. Kok, the owner, known to many as Auntie Hou, had many Portuguese and Macanese customers who told her how to cook traditional dishes.
