Restaurant review: Estabelecimento de Comidas Chu Kei, Macau
Noodle house's dumplings made to original 1950s recipe
"Here we are at the first noodle shop my mum opened — we've been here since 1954. We've opened four other branches in Macau over the years," says Yip Zhao-men, who runs the Estabelecimento de Comidas Chu Kei.
The shop was named after Yip's mother, and they still use her wonton recipe, which consists of minced pork, shiitake mushrooms and fresh shrimp. Their signature dish is the , or "three treasures" in Cantonese. It's a bowl of piping hot pork- and fish-bone-based bouillon that comes with three different types of dumplings — wonton, and "fish flour" dumplings.
Along with the half-century-old recipes for assorted dumplings, another popular item is the wonton fried to order. These have crisp, thin, handmade skins, and are served with a side dish of ketchup.
"Noodle houses existed in Macau in the 1950s, and we've carried on since then. I remember coming here as a boy to help out, when I was in Primary Three.
"Today, we go through about 65kg of dumpling fillings every day. Everything here is handmade, from the wrapper skins to the fillings," says Yip. He says they once worked over firewood stoves, but have since switched to charcoal.
Yip stresses the importance of texture, referring to the al dente texture of the dumpling skins.
"Previously, we used ground fish bones in the recipe but we were afraid the flour consistency would be too hard. We wanted to keep it fresh, so we tried adding sesame powder, and that worked well. Our dumpling wrappers are made with dace fish and we're the only shop in Macau doing this," says Yip.
