You have spent the last hour wandering through the narrow streets of Macau. The sun is setting, and you arrive in a plaza near the southern tip of the peninsula, where there is a temple and a street lined with Macanese restaurants. Even though you just finished lunch at 3 PM, and you're not that hungry yet, you decide you should eat. You've heard that people tend to eat dinner on the early side in Macau, so it's better safe than sorry.
You choose a restaurant that was recommended in your guidebook, knowing that it might be pricier than the types of restaurants you normally go to. This is, after all, probably the only time you'll ever visit Macau, and this is your only dinner there. You open the door of the restaurant. You feel a bit silly because you are wearing a button down shirt that you bought yesterday at the market in Hong Kong - a "Nautica" shirt (doubtful) that still is creased from the plastic packaging that it came in. But then you see that someone else in the restaurant is wearing a t-shirt, so you feel better.
Next you feel awkward because at the entrance to the restaurant there are stairs going up, and then you have to go down again after passing over a small balcony, where everyone in the restaurant will look at you - it's like the grand entrance that you really would prefer to pass on, but have no choice. You briefly re-consider the whole thing, thinking back to the last time you dined alone in a semi fancy (read: cloth napkins) restaurant while traveling abroad - 6 years ago in Bolivia when you had Italian food in Santa Cruz and you paid with credit card but forgot to sign the receipt and then the waiter had to chase you down in the streets to get you to come back and sign it and you were very embarassed and felt like an idiot and vowed never to eat in a "fancy" restaurant by yourself again.
But then you decide that you are in Macau, and for the sake of anthropological research, you should get a table for 1. So you do.
The menu looks good, and you can't really decide what to order, and even though the dishes seem large, you decide you should probably try at least two things. You ask a waiter what he recommends, and he suggests the Portuguese style clams as an appetizer, and the African Chicken as a main dish. The table next to you has both of these and they look good, so you agree. Each costs 90 Hong Kong dollars, which you need to divide by 7.5 to figure out how much that costs in US dollars, which is too much math at the moment, but you decide it's fine.
They don't have glasses of wine, only bottles, and a half-bottle of Portuguese Vinho Verde is only 80 Hong Kong dollars, which is cheaper than the watered down drink you had in Hong Kong last night, so you get that too!
The clams arrive - there are approximately 50 small clams in a lovely broth with whole cloves of garlic, olives, chilies and plenty of butter and wine. Your waiter tells you that it's good to dip your bread in the sauce - which means you did a good job pretending to be interested in nibbling on your bread prior to the arrival of the clams so it wouldn't be too obvious that you CLEARLY were planning to do lots of bread dipping and never even CONSIDERED using any of the butter provided. Ha.
You take a picture of your clams.
You eat about 1/2 of the clams and you are already getting full. Your wine is chilling in an ice bucket (!) next to your table and the waiters refill your glass regularly. The African Chicken arrives - this is a Macanese specialty, which is a huge serving of chicken (1/2 of a chicken, in fact) in a creamy sauce that reminds you of a cross between tomato soup, chicken tikka masala and Indonesian gado gado - except not really any of those. That combination sounds gross, but this is really good. You are also served rice, which is good because the sauce is rather spicy.
You take a picture of the African Chicken and the rice.
You are asked if you'd like your plate for clams taken away, and you say 'no' because you still might want more clams. In fact, you do. You also want more bread, and get some, and dip it in the broth from the clams again. You are getting very full, and also a bit tipsy because you are hot and the wine is cool and refreshing and you keep drinking it. You start focusing on not being too drunk. You DON'T knock over your wine glass as you reach across the table to grab one more clam. You DON'T absentmindedly stare at people at other tables. You DON'T let your eyes start to close.
You are happy when a waiter asks if you'd like to take the leftovers home with you - you agree, figuring that at least someone will eat them, but you decide to just take the chicken because leftover clams wouldn't be that good. You are definitely tipsy but luckily you don't have to talk to anyone, you just have to sit at your table with your glass of wine and take deep breaths and enjoy the restaurant. You are probably too full for dessert. "The Rivers of Babylon" starts playing in the background, which you find funny.
You decide to go to the bathroom, which is upstairs, and you focus very hard on holding the handrail and not doing anything dumb on the way up or down the stairs. You are successful. You come back down, and you think that you are all alone, on the other side of the world, and you are drunk and you are a kilometer from your hotel, and you have never been in this situation before. You decide that maybe the best solution is dessert afterall.
You ask to see the dessert menu, at first thinking that you might not really order any, but then you decide that sitting in the restaurant longer is probably a good idea, so you ask which dessert is best, and the manager says to get the serradura - she says this without hesitation, so you decide to do it even though you don't always like creamy desserts. After you order, you turn to the waiter and ask him to not serve the dessert for another 5 minutes because you are still too full.
After a while your dessert is served - serradura is fresh whipped cream, topped with a cookie crumb powder, the texture of sawdust. You take a picture of it. It looks pretty, but you are unconvinced - until your first bite.
The serradura might be the best dessert ever. It reminds you of the ice cream pie that your aunt Betsy makes during the summer, except the chocolate crumb crust has become vanilla sawdust, and the ice cream has turned into 'just plain cream' and it's in a bowl. You finish the dessert in 1 minute. You strongly consider ordering another one, because it's only 30 HK dollars which is only about 4 US dollars, which is totally worth it because this dessert is ridiculously good. You scoff at the notion that at one point you actually considered NOT ordering dessert.
You sit for a while longer and you feel a bit more sober now and you ask for the bill. You look around and you notice that there are at least two other tables taking pictures of their food. You are glad that at least you have this in common with the Chinese tourists. It is not weird here to take pictures of your food in restaurants.
You go to the bathroom again. You forget to check whether or not your napkin has been folded for you when you are back at your seat, which your friend Thomas says is a mark of a 'fine restaurant.' You wish you had noticed. But you think they probably folded it.
You pay with a credit card, and you stay put in your seat and remember to sign the receipt before you leave. You have spent more on this meal than you will on your hotel room, but it was worth it - again, for the sake of anthropologcal research. You walk outside into the muggy night air and get ready for the walk back to your hotel.
In general, you don't love dining alone, but you realize that it isn't always so bad.
