Macao

Macao cooks something you can eat almost nowhere else. Macanese food is four centuries of Portuguese sailors and Cantonese cooks improvising together, with African, Indian and Malay spices picked up along the trade routes. The emblem is minchi — minced pork and beef fried with soy, potato and a fried egg on rice — homely, savoury, and pure Macao.

The fusion runs everywhere: galinha à africana, chicken grilled under fiery piri-piri and coconut; galinha à portuguesa, a mild turmeric-coconut curry invented right here; salt-cod bacalhau baked the Lisbon way. Street snacks are half the fun — the crackling pork chop bun shoved into a crusty roll, and the caramel-blistered Portuguese egg tart that put the city on the map. Finish with serradura, a cool 'sawdust' pudding of cream and crushed biscuit, and a slab of grilled pork jerky for the walk home.