MACAU: Ali's Curry House

Macau lies on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, an hour ferry ride from Hong Kong. Because of the Portuguese background, even though just a mere ferry ride, the cuisine, the culture, even the way people look and talk are very much different from Hong Kong.  Local Macanese food is made up of a blend of mainly Chinese and Portuguese cuisines although it uses the ingredients and seasonings from different countries, including those from Europe, South America, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia ingredients. And who said Macau was ALL about the casinos?

This restaurant that we chose in Macau was Ali's Curry House. It's a low-key, lovely lakeside restaurant that's a close proximity from the city, facing the Sai Lake and the Macau Tower.  With both indoor and outdoor alfresco seating, the restaurant seats about 120. Seems like it's not that small of a restaurant, however if you don't make reservations ahead of time, expect to wait forever. (Note: this restaurant isn't like most other food outlets in Macau where it stays opened until the sun comes up, it HAS a closing time, and it's 11pm.)

The two times I've been here, I left with a very satisfied tummy, although a little bloated, nonetheless, my tummy was satisfied. The dishes aren't huge, making it possible to order a few more dishes to try out.They have a very extensive mouth-watering menu that makes it a difficult decision.

The first time I went, we started off with Shrimp on Toast, Baked Mussels and the Samosas.  The Shrimp toast was very fluffy with a big shrimp on top, so fluffy that it reminded me of tempura, though it was a bit on the oily side.  Samosas, again were too oily but it was bursting with flavourful curried veggies. TheBaked Mussels were perfect. Cheese was melted so that it was stringy, and the mussels itself was not only extremely fresh but they were large and were able to be pulled effortlessly from the shell.



As the name attests, Ali's Curry House, it's specialty is none other but Curry. They have a whole page dedicated to it, an assortment of curries are available, from Vegetarian curries to a variety of seafood curries, beef and lamb, basically everything that goes well with curry! We chose chicken curry. Not much of an exciting dish eh? You're wrong and I was wrong, they were able to WOW me with that dish. The flavours were so distinct, it's like you can differentiate the variety of spices, it tantilizes your tastes buds. It wasn't too spicy yet had a kick, the potatoes were soft where it just breaks apart in your mouth without chewing and the chicken was tender with a bit of sweetness.  What was even better was that they had 5-6 different Naan bread selections, we chose the whole wheat naan (trying to be healthy after all those fried food). Only comment is that it wasn't warm enough and a bit on the hard side. Another bite of the curry, low and behold, it easily made up for the flaws of the naan.

That was it for my first time at Ali's Curry House. When we left, it started pouring rain! Getting a taxi there is fine, it's leaving the restaurant that's a a hassle. There aren't any taxi's there, so you literally got to stand on the streets and wave them down (rain or shine).
Totally not equipped for the rain, we ran out, frantically waving our arms for a taxi and after 15 minutes, soaked, we finally found one. That's fine, we thought, our lunch was worth it.

The second time we went was for dinner. Here are just a few other dishes we tried:

Beef brisket curry, and not wanting to make the same mistake with the naan, we opted for rice.  The curry doesn't need anymore compliments, it gets enough; rather, this curry tasted very from the chicken. It was a lot meatier and a lot thicker.  Needless to say, we cleaned out the dish.

Beef Short Ribs, it tastes exactly what you would expect from a good short rib dish, savoury, salty and juicy.  It wasn't fatty but it was fairly greasy. It was cooked perfectly otherwise, I had to be STOPPED from hogging the whole dish to myself.

Portuguese Sausages, Thought we'd try something more "Portuguese" so we tried this. I didn't like it. It was far too salty and basically my tongue was numb and it stayed numb until i drank a full glass of water.

Duck Fried Rice, I didn't order this, only because I thought we already had enough food, with curry, appies, rice and all, but my companions did, and am I ever glad they did. Before this came, I was already full; I declared that I'd have just one bite to try it. That "one bite" didn't stop there, not even close, I think I had almost a whole bowl of rice after everything we had before that. The fried rice was dry, covering the hidden duck inside. Uncovering the rice, shredded duck was peeking through. The aroma of the duck literally filled-in the little space between me and the rice. The duck was very moist, shredded up with the duck skin making the fried rice a little chewier and crispier.

Overall this is worthy coming back to and it's a great place to take friends. Of the ones I've recommended, I don't think anyone has yet been disappointed! 

Ali's Curry House Avenida da República no. 4-K, Lojas L-M, R/C, Macau

Open daily from 12:30 pm. - 11:30 pm, Reservations are a MUST: +853 2855 5865