Jade Dragon - Macau
A modern dining room
Rating: 17/20
Where: Macau, Macao
When: Dinner for 2 on 21 April 2023
Cost: Tasting menu 2280 MOP, Wine pairing 1280 MOP
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Interesting French/Cantonese fusion dishes; excellent wine pairing
Jade Dragon is a three-Michelin-starred restaurant serving Cantonese food in Macau. More precisely, it's located in the humongous City of Dreams in Cotai. Opened in 2009, this casino complex is both futuristic and over-the-top, and the restaurant is a bit of both as well. First of all, the restaurant's footprint is huge. The dining room itself is not excessively large, but it has high ceilings, private and semi-private dining rooms, several kitchens, a two-story glass-encased wine cellar… the list goes on. Clearly, no expense has been spared here, and it must be nice to have a major casino cooperation underwriting your restaurant, because it removes such irritating headaches as actually having to turn a profit.
For our dinner, we had the choice between a tasting menu and the a la carte menu. We went for the tasting menu, but it looked like we were the only guests doing so. Or we just ate particularly slowly, since all other tables finished way ahead of us. There was a wine pairing available as well, and its wines were very, very good. Frequently, wine pairings consist of wines that retail at maybe $30 a bottle which allows restaurants to turn a tidy profit. Here, quite unusually, bottle prices went up to $200 - those were not cheap wines by any means. It therefore made sense that they were all poured using a Coravin (except for the champagne, of course). Definitely recommended. But if a wine pairing feels too restrictive, there were also sixteen wines available by the glass, so creating one’s own pairing is a viable option. Or just stick to the two dozens teas on offer.
We were welcomed with a small bowl of the seasonal house tea, a mixture of green tea and a flower tea. This was followed by an amuse bouche that was described as “foie gras with apple puree”. In reality, it was a little pink cake that had some sesame seeds on the bottom. Not the most auspicious beginning: the cake was quite dry, and I couldn't detect any taste of foie gras, and only a hint of apple 13.
Thankfully, a much better trio of appetizers showed up soon thereafter. An oyster from the French Atlantic coast had been breaded and deep fried. While it was still a bit juicy on the inside, it seemed quite fatty overall thanks to the breading. The oyster didn't have much flavor by itself, but the sweet and sour sauce on the side helped. Or even better, with the condiments that we had throughout the meal: black bean sauce, XO sauce and a hot pepper sauce 15.
Jade Dragon’s kitchen has a whole station dedicated to barbecuing - in fact one passes it right after entering the restaurant. Sadly, the only barbecued item on the tasting menu was the “caviar suckling pig” amuse bouche. Crispy pig skin and caviar were served on top of a cracker. A nice little morsel: the salty caviar and slightly sweet cracker made for a good combination. Unfortunately, in the aftertaste there was only the cracker’s sweetness 16.
Appetizer number three was a cold Mantis shrimp served in a broth made from 20 year old Chinese yellow wine. I really liked this dish: the shrimp was nicely done, juicy, tender, full of flavor and filled with a spicy condiment. The soup was also quite spicy (and salty), and some crunchy vegetable strips added some texture 17.
Next up: a seafood soup made from crab, clams and fish. Also in the bowl were a crab claw and a mochi dumpling filled with a bird's nest. The soup was essentially a Chinese bouillabaisse - it even contained a bit of saffron. Compared to the French original, this soup’s flavor had less of a punch, and its texture was much silkier. Overall, I think I prefer the French version, but I’m not sure that’s a meaningful comparison. Considering this dish on its own merits, it was actually quite nice, with the crab claw very well prepared and suffused by the soup. The dumpling tasted pretty much of nothing, but that might have been the point - the bird's nest soaked up the soup, and thereby added a bit of texture to the silken soup. The mochi was not quite as successful, its main purpose was to stop the bird's nest from disintegrating too early. Otherwise, the dumpling felt too heavy in an otherwise light dish. In short, the soup was much better than what was in it 17. This was the first example of a Chinese/French crossover on the menu, an even more distinctive example would follow later.
But before that: a more traditional Cantonese dish. Fresh Australian abalone was paired with broccoli and a fish maw filled with pomelo peel. The thick sauce on the plate was very good and nicely flavored. It's not Jade Dragon's fault that we had a world-class version of this dish just the previous day - so it was hard not to compare this to Forum’s version. Forum’s sauce had more flavor, and the dried abalone also took on more of the sauce’s flavor. The fresh abalone here needed a bit more help to combine with the sauce, namely by cutting it into thin slices, which was actually not that easy due to its springy, chewy texture. But overall, I preferred the texture of the fresh abalone to the dried version. The hot Chinese mustard brought out on a whim by our server made the dish even better - apparently this was the traditional seasoning for abalone during the 1970s or 1980s. What surprised me most about this dish is how much I liked the fish maw, given that a previous encounter was not that happy. Naturally, the fish maw was gelatinous, but its filling made it taste mostly bready - it soaked up the sauce perfectly, and thus tasted of the same. Still, the abalone was the best part of the dish for me 17.
The next course looked like something that would be seen in a French restaurant, rather than a Cantonese one. Iberico pork was crusted with herbs and served with a mushroom sauce, morel mushrooms, turnips and cauliflower florets. On the side was a bit of balsamic vinegar to be used as a condiment. What makes this dish Chinese? Well, besides the not-very-French vinegar seasoning, the mushroom sauce had Chinese flavors that one wouldn't expect in Paris. Tastewise, that sauce was pleasant enough, but not as full of mushroom flavor as one would expect a “mushroom sauce” to be. The pork sadly seemed a bit overcooked - it was much, much better with the balsamic vinegar, since the vinegar’s sweetness and acidity made the pork seem less dry. The vegetables were fine, but had hardly any innate flavors. A final nitpick: this dish should have been served warmer 17.
A honey sorbet containing truffles arrived as a palate cleanser. The aftertaste of the truffles was a bit weird combined with the sweet sorbet 15.
Next, a semi-translucent dumpling was colored with beetroot and filled with mushrooms, carrots, and yams. It sat on a ring of winter melon and some spinach. Starting at the bottom: the spinach was a bit bitter, but nicely cooked. The winter melon tasted pretty much of nothing, so it was mostly a textural (and/or structural) element in this dish. The dumpling however was quite tasty, the fact that it was only lightly seasoned was easily remedied by adding some black bean sauce 17.
Our final savory dish was a red prawn prepared two ways. The prawn's body was nicely braised, juicy and a tad sweet - very good (maybe 17 by itself). The prawn's head had been breaded and deep-fried. The inside of this fried ball was full of liquid prawn brains - quite bitter, and an acquired taste (sadly not by me). Also on the plate: udon (that admittedly looked more like tagliatelle) and a shrimp sauce. The sauce was good, but a bit light, and the noodles were fine. Altogether, the shrimp body was by far the best part of an otherwise “just ok” dish 16.
The main dessert was a pineapple sorbet topped with pistachio ice cream and a cinnamon cracker. Next to it were an apple passion fruit jelly and a foam made of Macao beer (!). This dish was full of lovely flavors that went together quite well. The pistachio ice cream tasted more of pistachio butter than I would have expected. The cookie felt Christmas-y, but was not that crunchy, more like soft speculoos. A very sweet dessert overall, and I particularly liked the caramel flavor contributed by caramelized pieces of pineapple 17.
A collection of petit fours concluded our dinner. We were offered two small ice cream waffles, one with honeydew sorbet, the other with Hong Kong-style tea ice cream. I tried the latter, and the ice cream was nice, but I would have preferred the waffle to be fresher and crunchier 15. A berry cookie was unremarkable 13. Chocolate containing hazelnuts, pistachios and sesame had a nice crunch from the nuts, but the chocolate itself was just ok 15. A candy made from green tea, hazelnuts and rice was a bit plain 13. And finally, a walnut cookie was quite crumbly and had an odd taste for me 12.
Overall: A good dinner, with a menu that featured several Cantonese classics, but wasn't afraid of including some quite non-traditional dishes. French-Cantonese crossovers like the Iberico pork and the Chinese bouillabaisse were quite memorable. With good service and an excellent wine pairing, we had a great experience. However, while the dishes were consistently good, not a single one of them was truly outstanding, as one would expect at the three-star level 17.
Tasting menu and wine pairing