Macao offers a menu of delight

Documentary looks at the stories behind the region's mouthwatering cuisine, Xu Fan reports.

As the clock hands approach midnight, Ma Qingqi－a delivery driver in Zhongshan, Guangdong province－leaves his home to start his daily routine. Earlier than most of his fellow drivers, he transports fresh vegetables to a wholesale market in Macao. After unloading the goods, Ma relishes the most relaxing time of the day－and orders a cup of coffee and a pineapple bun.

As a popular destination renowned for its varied cuisine, Macao lives up to any tourist's expectations for a tasty trip. However, a lesser-known fact is that around 90 percent of the region's fresh ingredients are transported from the Chinese mainland, with the "vegetable basket project"－a decadeslong program to improve food production and supplies－carried out in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Ma's routine, exemplifying the project's impact, is seen in Crunch and Munch in Macao, a 4K documentary series jointly produced by the China Media Group and the Macao Special Administrative Region.

With four episodes, each spanning 50 minutes, the documentary has been running on multiple platforms including CCTV-1 and CCTV-9 since Dec 18, two days before the 22nd anniversary of Macao's return to the motherland. Currently, the documentary has been watched by more than 23 million people, and has accumulated 600 million clicks of its related social media content on platforms including Sina Weibo.