Lord Stow's Garden Cafe

105 Rua da Cordoaria, Coloane Village, Macau
Visited 13th June 2010 A weekend in Macau with Joey and Sunday morning we found ourselves exploring Coloane Village. While there’s plenty to see in terms of temples, dragon boat shipyards and muddy channel views, Colane is really famous for its egg tarts. The place responsible is Lord Stow’s who have built a little empire that includes Lord Stow's Cafe, the original Lord Stow's Bakery and Lord Stow’s Garden Café where we found ourselves. With an outlet at the Venetian and franchises in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines Lord Stow’s has certainly grown from its humble Coloane roots. Though I'm always a little sceptical about "must try" and "best in Macau" style claims we decided we had to sample a couple of egg tarts. The Garden Café itself is a nice airy restaurant with a few outdoor tables.

The menu is a bit of random mix; there’s a selection of Thai dishes, but also plenty of other stuff including Cornish Pasties, lasagne, salads, baked potatoes. It actually reminded me a lot of café menus in the UK, though that could have just been the baked potato. The emphasis is on healthy ingredients and nearly everything is homemade on site. We ordered Thai fried chicken with rice for simple reason the people on the next table were munching into it and it looked good. The chicken was crisp, well cooked and tender. It came served with rice and a couple of homemade sambals. I got really old school and ordered a coke float while Joey went for a honey and fruit tea. While the float was awesome unfortunately the coffee I had to finish was terrible; weak and lacking flavour it was really disappointing. Oh and the egg tarts you ask; best in the world? Well they were delicate wee things and really liked the custard filling; however the oily pastry was a touch burnt on bottom. While I really liked them ‘best in the world’ is a big call.

To be honest I wasn't expecting much apart from hype from Lord Stow’s, but I really did enjoy my visit. The café itself was a relaxed and pleasant place for lunch, while the staff were efficient and ultra friendly. Our grub came to a reasonable $114 and there was no mention of deceitful service charge. While not really Macanese in style everything was pretty tasty apart from the appalling coffee; something that needs to be fixed if they are going to call themselves a ‘café’. Wondering Coloane is a very pleasant way to spend a morning in Macau and our lunch at Lord Stow’s Garden Café certainly went down well Visit restaurant website.