Macao Trading Company — Restaurant in New York

Let me begin with, I eat out at new places all the time and have never ever until now felt strongly compelled enough to write a negative review for a restaurant, ever. The food was pretty good, and the decor / atmosphere / vibe of the restaurant was really cool and pleasant and enjoyable. Our waiter, Sam, was shockingly rude. Like really ... jarringly condescending and rude. We started with a round of drinks for our table of seven. We received several eye rolls during the process of placing this first first round of drinks. I felt we were completely kind and nice and polite so the attitude came as a surprise. When it came time to place a food order, we read off about 8 different items from the menu that we all planned to share (mostly appetizers, but one or two of the entree items as well). Sam's response was "oh, are you planning on going somewhere else for dinner after?", sarcastically suggesting that our order wasn't large enough for the size of our group. Mind you, the bill ended up being $700 --- so, $100 each. We responded "yes, we're all going to split everything" and Sam replied "hmm, ok, we'll see if that will be enough". I've never ever been met with the kind of blatant sarcasm, rudeness, and disdain as we were with Sam at Macao Trading Company this evening. It was almost laughably rude (literally, several of us could not help but laugh immediately after). We felt uncomfortable and unwanted in the establishment as a direct result of the treatment we received from our waiter. I always tip generously anyway and would not have done otherwise, but it felt strongly as if Sam felt comfortable treating us this way because the gratuity on our check was guaranteed given the size of the party. In summation, it's a dope place with cool food but we paid $100 each to be snarled at and treated...

The scene’s like a 1930s Hollywood movie, set in the Mysterious Orient: Within the woody, warehouse-like premises—note the burlap-covered walls and the chicken wire lining the furnishings-filled balcony—you envision a down-on-her-luck Jean Harlow to rendezvous with a cynical (but secretly sentimental) Clark Gable at a marble-topped, candlit table, while glamorous Anna May Wong glowers in the background.

We have come to this scruffy-chic, dimly lit homage to Old Macao (until 1999, a Portuguese colony within China) to feast on the fare created by its new executive chef Erica Ohrling, late of Vinegar Hill House and Waverly Inn. Rather than do any fusiony mash-ups, Ohrling juxtaposes dishes of East and West, with appetizers like chicken/pork belly dumplings and charred octopus, and such entrees as lobster noodles and steamed halibut with chimichurri, happily co-existing on her menu. But there is some crossover between Chinese and Portuguese cuisines, too: a lamb shank braised with Sichuan spices and mint leaves and adorned with bok choy; raw oysters served with an addictive green apple and tiger’s milk mignonette. A classic Asian dessert of coconut shaved ice over fruit and black sesame paste goes beautifully with a glass of Prosecco.

Speaking of drinks: Behind the curved, scuffed-wood bar, glittering with bottles and glasses, a cornucopia of original cocktails are shaken, stirred and mixed up. Bearing delightful ingredients, from pureed melon to sassafras syrup, and even more delightful names, like Bashful Maiden to Drunken Dragon’s Milk, they pack a potent punch—and offer an ideal way to toast your trip to an imaginary...

The atmosphere is lively and “in character” in relation to Macao. Unfortunately we had some really strange service and the quality of food was inconsistent. At the start of our dining experience our waitress was very clear that we had only 2 hours and would have to leave by a certain time. The reminder was fine but the delivery did not make us feel like welcomed guests. A few of my friends wanted to order the steamed fish and the server kept telling them it was soup based and almost suggested they shouldn’t order it. We were all confused as my friends still wanted that dish. I’m vegetarian/vegan and had the fried spinach dumplings. They were ok but would have preferred them without cheese. I did like the shishito peppers because they were vegan (I think) and the portion was generous. I ordered the hoisin noodles as it was pretty much the only entree available. It’s called hoisin Hakka. To the restaurant, hoisin means seafood in Chinese so perhaps an update to the name would make it more clear. The noodles were disappointing. Very hard and I didn’t finish them. Despite giving us a two hour dining limit our server was hard to pin down the rest of the evening. It took almost 30 mins to get our dessert and another 20 mins to process our cards. We asked for individual cards if possible and the server said it would take a longer “minute”. Had we know it would take 20 we would have done one card. We left almost an hour after our allotted time so I guess there was a no show. From a sustainability standpoint it was generally fine but the disposable chopsticks swapped for reusable are low...