The road to LouLan

From colonial Macau to Silk Road cuisine

The road to LouLan
From colonial Macau to Silk Road cuisine

I don’t think I’ll ever get bored with wandering around old Macau. Cotai is fun in measured doses, but its Vegas-like glitz can only offer so much entertainment before one starts yearning for something with a little more depth. I do use Cotai as a way station, though. All the major hotels and casinos in Cotai provide free limousine buses from whatever border point you arrive at to their respective resorts.

I always arrive at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) port. There are two buses that I can get, one is operated by Sands and takes me to Venetian, another goes to the Hollywood-themed Studio City. From either of those, I can hop onto the LRT and across the Porto Exterior, or Outer Harbour, to Barra in just a few minutes.

Barra is where Portuguese mariners first came ashore back in 1557, though the coastline of the peninsula looked very different then. Numerous waves of land reclamation over the years have more than doubled its land area, so that you now have old Macau and even older Macau. The latter can only be identified by the presence of hills and numerous churches, whereas the reclaimed areas are mostly flat. I have described the flat parts more fully in Baccarat, Bordellos and Bakeries.

I am on my way to LouLan Restaurant, in the heart of old Macau. I would normally just filter my way through these streets, checking out the trendy coffee shops and traditional Cha chaan tengs. Today I am off to fulfil a promise I made to myself the last time I was there.

But it is a bright and blustery day, and I am in the mood for a gentle stroll before lunch. I have slathered sunscreen across the most northerly parts of my body. The dome at the very top once sported a luxuriant crop of hair that made such fastidious attention to skin care unnecessary. These days, it doesn’t take long in the sun for it to start glowing a radioactive red.

Santa Sancha Palace

The graceful sweep of Avenida da República, Rua da Praia Bom Parto, and Avenida da Praia Grande trace original coastline of the outer harbour before the terrain climbs steeply up to the Chapel of Our Lady of Penha (main picture). Water does still edge up to the tree-lined República, but these days the water is a lake rather than the open sea. A steady stream of joggers plod their way along the granite pavement on the waterside. Opposite, there are still some fabulous old mansions and municipal buildings from the colonial era to enjoy.

Two of my favourite structures are the red-ochre Santa Sancha Palace and the Portuguese consulate. The Palace was designed by Tomás de Aquino, a locally born architect, and built in 1846. From 1855, it was owned by Alexandrino António de Melo, Viscount of Cercal. The Portuguese government acquired it in 1923 and, after extensive renovation work, it was used as the governors official residence. Since 1999, it has served as Macau’s Government House and state guest house.

I had the pleasure of staying at the consulate in the late 1980s. Back then, it wasn’t a consulate; of course, it was the Bela Vista Hotel. A noble but, at that time, rather run-down establishment. It was built around 1870 and was the home of William Clarke, a British sea captain, and his wife.

The former Bela Vista Hotel, now the Portuguese consulate in Macau

It was converted into the Hotel Boa Vista in 1890 and renamed Hotel Bela Vista in 1936. Over the years, it served as a school, a refugee camp, and a recreation center for the British military. In 1990, it was taken over by the Mandarin Oriental Group, which renovated and operated it as a luxurious boutique hotel with just eight rooms. It was bought by the Portuguese government in 1999 to serve as the residence of the Consul-General of Portugal.

Lunch is served

I arrive at LouLan a little after two o’clock. It’s not my first time here, but it is difficult to do justice to a menu in just one sitting. The first time I ate here was some months ago, I’d stopped in just for a comforting bowl of noodles. I tried the Xian hot oil splashed noodles and was so impressed that I came back a couple of weeks later and had exactly the same thing again.

The noodles are hand-pulled, thick and broad, similar in shape to lasagna. It is served with onion, garlic, and chilli powder in a sour sauce and topped with pak choi. Also, on that first occasion, I had ordered the deep-fried lamb pasty and, delicious though it was, I had ordered way too much and wasn’t able to finish.

Xian hot oil splashed noodles (top), The restaurant interior, barbecued lamb skewers, and stir fried cucumber (bottom l-r)

This time, I was determined to try something different. The proprietor of the restaurant gave her name simply as Miss Lou. The name LouLan is, however, the Chinese pronunciation of Krorän, an ancient kingdom that existed on the Silk Road, in what is now Xinxiang, as far back as the second century BCE.

Miss Lou recommended lamb chops on naan bread. The meat was actually shredded into bite-sized pieces, skewered, and marinated in cumin, chilli, and garlic, before being grilled over coals for a delicious, smoky char. It is a quintessential street snack frequently found in cities like Kashgar, Turpan and Urumqi.

For vegetables, I added a plate of stir-fried cucumber. It was a toss between that and cucumber salad, and while the stir-fried was perfectly fine, in retrospect, I think the salad might have made a better marriage. I couldn’t eat it all anyway, so I didn’t feel too guilty.

Brewed grape juice was an excellent choice to complement it all, though. It contains no alcohol, even though it tastes as if it might. It does have a tangy, slightly sweet sparkle that cleanses the palate nicely.

Loulan is certified halal by the Hong Kong Islamic Trust Foundation

Loulan Restaurant
G/F, Longzhou Building,
169 Rua de Cinco de Outubro
Macau
+853 28530264

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