On Taipa Island, down a dusty alley in Taipa Village, is Cozinha Pinocchio, a restaurant that has a cultish following among residents of Macao - Chinese, Portuguese and Macanese - and among the weekend gamblers and pleasure seekers who spill over to Macao from Hong Kong, like jackpot coins from a slot machine.

Taipa Island, once known for building junks and manufacturing firecrackers, is part of the territory of Macao and is connected to the Macao peninsula by a 1.6-mile bridge. A larger island, called Coloane, is connected to Taipa by a 1.4-mile causeway.

Pinocchio serves a synthesis of Portuguese and Macanese cooking, and Macanese cuisine itself is an outgrowth of the improbable mixture of cultures that have been thrown together in the territory.

After Macao's establishment as a Portuguese colony in 1557, the produce and wealth of Africa, Burma, China, Europe, India, Japan, Malaysia, South America and Thailand passed through the city in an elaborate trading chain. Macao is now a fairly sleepy city of 420,000 crowded onto six square miles and is eclipsed as a trading center by its relatively young neighbor Hong Kong, which China ceded to England in 1841. But even though Macao's decline as a world trading center began in the mid-17th century, many of the countries that traded through the city left an impression on the architecture, cultural identity and cuisine.

Macao is still administered by Portugal, and much Macanese food is Portuguese, although less salty and more flavorful. Spices and foodstuffs introduced to Macao's cuisine from Portugal's former colonies include saffron and chillies from Goa, kidney beans, peanuts and tomatoes from Brazil, nutmeg, cinnamon and white pepper from Malacca and piri-piri peppers used in African chicken, Macao's signature dish. They come from Angola and Mozambique.

Wines, sardines and sausages are imported from Portugal. The food also makes ample use of ginger and soy sauce and other products of China. Local produce provides the staples: chicken, pork, prawns, vegetables, quail and pigeon.

Since 95 percent of Macao is Cantonese (almost 90 percent of Pinocchio's customers are Chinese), the food is usually served Chinese style, with each dish placed in the center of the table for everyone to share. Still, two people can have a varied meal since many items are offered individually (order one prawn, for example, for each person). The menu, incidentally, is in English, Chinese and Portuguese, the three languages spoken in Macao.

Back-opened hot prawns (about $4.50 each; prices have been converted to United States dollars) are, perhaps, the most admired dish at Pinocchio. The prawns are the size of small lobsters. The meat is springy, moist and swollen with garlic. The prawns are harvested locally, from the Pearl River estuary, beside which Macao sits. (Macao is at the mouth of the Pearl River on the South China coast, about 40 miles southwest of Hong Kong and 87 miles south of Canton.) The water is brackish; the prawns thus have a flavor associated with seafood yet the subtlety of freshwater fish. Also worth trying are smaller hot prawns with garlic and salt (about $7.20 for enough for four people).

Roast quail is 85 cents apiece. The skin looks like well-polished rosewood, and they are sweet, with every pore, cartilage and ligament surrounded by garlic. Sardines (65 cents each), imported from Portugal, are about six inches long; they are charcoal grilled and served on lettuce. Squeeze plenty of lemon on both quails and sardines.

African chicken is chicken spiced with peppers and then charcoal grilled. Coconut is sometimes used as a marinade. But it is not served at Pinocchio. For African chicken, try Grill Fortaleza at the Pousada de Sao Tiago . Pinocchio does serve Portuguese chicken ($2.60), which has potatoes and is prepared with curry, coconut, tomatoes, olives and saffron.

Another specialty at Pinocchio is curried crab (about $10 for three people). The crab comes from local waters, is heaped with onions and makes for messy eating.

Pinocchio's cod stew (codfish caldeirada Portuguese style; $2.80) is salty and tough, a chewy layered mixture of cod slabs and vegetables popular with Macao Portuguese - but not with most Chinese. The cod is imported from Norway. Equally popular with the Portuguese are codfish cakes and caldo verde, a vegetable and potato soup.

Roast pigeon ($5.80 each) comes laid out smartly on a plate, cut into sections and with the head separate. This is the Chinese style of presentation, but the pigeons taste different from Cantonese roast pigeon. Pinocchio's are rich but not gamey and, as with quail, garlic is used in preparation; lemon should be squeezed on top.

Hot rolls (which sometimes have to be requested) are free. They are delicious, yeasty and sweet. And the Portuguese fried rice ($1.15 for a heaping plate) is a tawny red from tomatoes fried with it. It is usually ordered at the end of the meal.

Most of the restaurant, which seats around 200, is a roofed courtyard. At the front is a brick wall; to the back is the kitchen; on one flank is a little house with an office upstairs, and on the other is a small wing. Both the house and wing have a small dining room. These two indoor eating spaces are air-conditioned in summer and protected from the wind in winter; the extra charge for sitting in them is 10 percent of the cost of the meal.