the street of salty fishes

{rua de peixes salgados}
haven't been there yet but i have been to The New Yaohan Department Store Food Court.
Yesterday I discovered the there was a four storey department store just behind our worksite. You might think that i should have noticed it before, but buildings are very confusing here; most things look like banks, but then turn out to be food courts or shopping arcades (or banks), the casinos look like casinos and the new yaohan looks a bit like the research wing of a hospital. They have fresh bread from a bakery in HK that tastes like bread, most macau bread is fluffy and v. sugary. They also have the most grating muzac in the history of muzac; they must have seen the blues brothers lift scene and thought "That's good..., but let's see if we can make that tune a little more upbeat, and, I don't know, just sweeter somehow." five minutes hurts, but an hour was starting to induce psychosis.

wondering what to do for dinner, I thought that i might try the yaohan food court; I think that it may have been japanese owned, at some point because there is a lot of japanese stuff there, including four food court variations on japanese food.

Looking at this i thought that i had wandered into the land of food ordering ease; i know that names of some japanese dishes, there were numbers on the menu, an english desciption of the dish and a plastic model of the food. I happily wandered up to the counter and tried to order. For a while there was no-one there, but i could see activity in the kitchen, eventually a man came out from the kitchen with some food and looked at me suspiciously, I tried to order food and he frowned and pointed at a booth that said "cashier" I went up, pointed at dish No. 546, paid and was given a little receipt ticket. i went back to the food counter and tried to give the ticket to the woman there; she scowled at me and pointed to a number on my ticket. I was No. 4727. I sat down and waited. occasionally someone would appear at one of the counters and call out a number in cantonese over a PA that the store had obviously got secondhand from the edinburgh bus station. I waited until there was a dish that no one collected. after a few minutes i thought it was safe to check. the food was ok, but not necessarily worth the humiliation and confusion. At least the staff in our lunch cafe laugh at us in a good-natured way.

I have been drinking dong gafe a lot; this is basically nescafe, water, uht milk and ice cubes, it is surprisingly refreshing. other good local drinks are hot ginger coke- flat, but tasty and "mixture of tea and coffee", drinks we found at a bar called Sha-la-la; they also have an extensive toast menu, including toast with salty fish.