Documentary uncovers Macao's culinary melting pot

"Tan cuisine is a school of cooking that can be enjoyed by both northern Chinese and southern Chinese because the flavors are very balanced," says Liu. "The original flavors of the ingredients are protected.

"But it is also a cuisine that is very exclusive and hard to truly understand because of the labor-intensive cooking methods involved.

"Also, few chefs have worked in a kitchen with a chef from the original Tan household."

According to Liu, the spirit of Tan Zongjun, the cuisine's creator, is woven throughout the Golden Flower-from the menu to the restaurant's interior decoration and its ambience.

"Macao is a window to the food world, even though it's a small city," says Chen.

He's not alone in that assessment. After more than a year of public and private preparations for Macao's application to join the UNESCO creative cities network, Macao became a UNESCO creative city of gastronomy in November 2017.

It became the third city of gastronomy in China, joining Shunde in Guangdong province and Chengdu in Sichuan province.

Continuing on his voyage of culinary discovery, Chen, who tends to view the world through his sense of taste and smell, is wowed by steamed prawn dumplings with pickled vegetables and baked barbecued pork buns at Wing Lei, the classic Cantonese cuisine restaurant in Macao.

They impressed him just as much on his last visit there 20 years ago.

He's also been enjoying the company of Hideki Fujikawa, the sushi chef of the Wynn Macao's other Michelin-starred restaurant, Mizumi. The pair paid a visit to Fujikawa's master in Japan to learn the origin of his sushi-making skills.

"I've seen his master's skill and I know that chef Fujikawa is bringing all that he has learned to Macao," Chen says.

Yan Tao, who conceptualized the documentary, notes that one of Macao's greatest assets is its ability to maintain its original culture, while at the same time still accepting others'-and surmounting the challenges they pose. He cites this as the main motivation that drove him to want to document the food story here.

"It's a place where, when you try spicy food, you will not only have authentic Sichuan flavor," he says, "but you can also see the fusion of local ingredients and international cooking methods."