Hi, it’s Solyn. This time we went to Tin Fok, five minutes on foot from Artyzen Grand Lapa, where we were staying on the Macau Peninsula.
If the word “teppanyaki” makes you think of a Japanese chef performing tricks over a hot plate, adjust. This is Taiwanese teppanyaki, which is a different thing — and the menu says so at the top: the original teppanyaki spirit, from Taiwan.
We went in with no expectations. It turned out to be one of the meals I’d most confidently take a friend to.
Getting there
Tin Fok sits on Rua de Berlim in the NAPE district, on the Macau Peninsula.
From Artyzen Grand Lapa it’s about a five-minute walk — close enough that we went on foot without thinking about it.
We walked in at dinner time on a Saturday and sat down straight away — no wait.
The vibe
The kitchen is open, so you can watch your food being made.
We didn’t sit at the counter, so I wasn’t right in front of the griddle. You can still see everything from the tables, and watching your own order come together is more fun than it sounds.
Beyond that, it’s quiet and casual. Not a special-occasion restaurant, not a loud one either. Go in expecting a decent dinner and you’ll get exactly that.
What’s on the menu
The menu has photos and English next to every item, so ordering is genuinely easy even with no Chinese.
Prices in patacas (MOP):
Sets
– Tin Fok handmade dumpling set — MOP 68. Eight dumplings (chives and pork, or basil and cabbage with pork, or coriander and pork), plus Taiwanese hot-and-sour soup, snacks, and a drink — cold-brewed oolong, Dong Ding oolong, or hot brown sugar ginger tea.
– Set for two — MOP 188. Sliced beef with onion, teppanyaki sole, scrambled egg with spring onion, and stir-fried A-choy, with crab roe cucumber salad and unlimited refills of soup, rice and the set drinks.
Beef, à la carte
– Beef tenderloin in black pepper sauce — MOP 98
– Chuck steak with garlic — MOP 98
– US Angus ribeye — MOP 198
– Prime Angus boneless short rib — MOP 248
– Australian wagyu — MOP 268
Seafood
– Teppanyaki king squid, hot and sour — MOP 98
– Shrimp with garlic and pepper — MOP 68 · prawns with lemon — MOP 74
– Butter-fried flounder — MOP 74 · butter-fried salmon — MOP 79 · yellow croaker — MOP 98
The cheese section is its own thing: cheese egg roll MOP 40, cheese chicken steak MOP 68, cheese scallops MOP 56, cheese prawns MOP 78, cheese Boston lobster by the half or whole.
Two of us ate for around MOP 300 (~$37), which is about MOP 150 a head (~$19).
The dumplings, and a warning
Order the dumplings. Then read this before you bite one.
They look like plain fried dumplings. They are not.
Bite into one and the soup bursts out — and it is properly hot. This is the one thing I’d tell you before you sit down. Take a small bite first, or you will regret it.
Past that, they’re excellent. The chives and pork come through gently rather than shouting, and the wrapper holds up.
The rest of what we ordered
The chuck steak with garlic (MOP 98) comes exactly as the menu photo shows it — sliced, peppered, with whole cloves of garlic griddled soft and scattered over the top.
It arrives with teppanyaki noodles in their own pan: yellow noodles fried with cabbage and onion, with a fried egg laid over the whole thing. Break the yolk into the noodles. That’s the point of it.
Then a plate of onion and mushroom, griddled with garlic and spring onion.
Simple, and better than it looks — the onions go sweet on the hot plate. It’s also the dish that goes best with a cold beer, which they have.
Here’s what surprised me most, and it’s worth saying plainly.
If Southeast Asian spicing doesn’t agree with you, that isn’t a problem here. No aggressive herbs, nothing that ambushes you. The flavours are broad and easy — the kind of food you can bring anyone to without checking first.
I went in expecting nothing in particular, and it turned out to be exactly the kind of food I like.
- Ordering is effortless. Photos and English on every item. You will not order the wrong thing by accident.
- The dumplings. Hot soup inside, gentle chives-and-pork filling. Get the MOP 68 set.
- Broad, unchallenging flavours — no heavy spicing, nothing that divides a table.
- Around MOP 150 a head for a proper sit-down dinner on the peninsula.
- Open kitchen, so you get to watch your food cooked even from a table.
- No wait on a Saturday evening.
- There’s a recommended-dishes menu too, and honestly anything on it is a safe pick.
- A 10% service charge is added, printed on the menu and taped up again by hand. Factor it in.
- Watch the semi-buffet rule. The menu states that if one person at the table uses the semi-buffet bar, everyone at that table gets charged per head. Decide together before anyone wanders over.
- We paid cash, so I can’t confirm whether cards are accepted.
- Where: Rua de Berlim, NAPE, Macau Peninsula. Roughly five minutes on foot from Artyzen Grand Lapa.
- Cost: About MOP 300 for two (~$37), plus the 10% service charge.
- Ordering: Photo menu with English throughout. No language problem.
- Payment: We used cash. Cards unconfirmed.
- Booking: We walked in on a Saturday evening with no wait.
- The dumpling warning: the soup inside is very hot. Small first bite.
- The semi-buffet: one person using it charges the whole table per head.
Would I come back?
There’s a lot of Macau I still haven’t eaten my way through, so I won’t pretend this is the only place I’d go.
But here’s the real test: if I were bringing friends, I’d walk them here without hesitating. That’s a shorter list than the places I merely enjoyed.
Taiwanese teppanyaki wasn’t what I came to Macau for. It’s one of the meals I remember best.
— Solyn