Bao are the hot new menu item at some of the trendiest restaurants in the city. These four picks show the diversity of this Chinese staple, ranging from the traditional to a delightfully modern take on the Big Mac.   

 

Bao — steamed buns that are often found on dim sum menus filled with barbecued pork — has a mythical genesis story, and it all starts with that sweet, chewy, cloudlike bread called mantou.

Mantou is a yeast-raised dough that spends time in a steamer basket, rather than the oven. Legend has it that General Zhuge Liang invented the bread some 1,800 years ago when he needed to ford a particularly dangerous river. A barbarian lord on the other side of the river told the general that safe passage would only be assured if he scarified 50 of his men and tossed their severed heads in the river. Instead, Liang made 50 head-shaped bread buns and threw those in the river, earning him safe passage across.

 

“Please don’t douse this in soya sauce — that would be sacrilege.”

 

Mantou is just the bread, when the buns are stuffed — across Asia fillings range from curries to soups to braised meats and even sweet legume pastes — they become bao. Here are four local interpretations from eateries both old and new.
Let’s start with the most orthodox buns in town, which are found at Traditional Chinese Bun, an unfussy subterranean eatery on Dundas (unfussy is a generous adjective). The open kitchen is smack dab in the centre of the tiny restaurant, allowing keen home chefs some insight into chef-owner Jin Linda Liu’s techniques. Our favourite bao on the menu are from Liu’s home province of Shangdon. Liu braises pork, nappa cabbage, scallions and ginger together and then tucks the mixture into the dough before the grapefruit-sized buns hit the bamboo steaming basket for a 15-minute shvitz.

At Luckee, downtown’s swishy new dim sum mecca, Susur Lee braises beef short ribs for two days in a peppery hoisin sauce so that they are beyond tender. Once the melt-in-your-mouth short ribs are wrapped in dough, the bun gets a steam bath before being dredged in ethereal, scallion-studded batter. Lee’s braised black pepper beef bao might just be the city’s best bun. It’s the perfect trinity of textures: crispy, chewy and gooey. Please don’t douse this bao in soya sauce — that would be sacrilege, because the flavour profile is an already too-perfect balance of sweet, salty and piquant.

Instead of your traditional stuffed, sealed and steamed Chinese bao, over at Daishō they fold over a mantou to create bao-style sandwiches. The duck buns fuse traditional Chinese and French flavours to great effect. Confit duck legs get pulled and mixed with mirepoix and a roux and are then moulded into patties that hit the plancha for a quick double-sided sear. The mantou is drizzled with hoisin-date sauce, and a citrine-hued pickled turnip adds needed acidity to cut through the fat and salt.

What do you get when you combine fast-food cravings with a hankering for dim sum? You get Henry’s Lil Big Mac at the County General, which is basically a mash up of a McDonald’s Big Mac with char siu (BBQ pork) bao. An apple wood–smoked pork belly morsel is served on a steamed milk bun with Thousand Island dressing, iceberg lettuce, some pickle and Day-Glo American cheese.