BAO Fitzrovia is going full steam ahead for Chinese New Year. Under the watchful eyes of owners Shing Tat and Wai Ting Chung, the brother and sister raised by Cantonese restaurateur parents in Nottingham, and Erchen Chang — Shing’s wife — 8,000 signature steamed gua bao buns will be chowed down before the week is out.
For the uninitiated, these are steamed milk buns stuffed with unctuous fillings: slow-braised or confit pork, “cod black” (squid-dyed cod), daikon and beef short rib. In addition, there’s a special pink-dyed, edible-eared “Piggy” bao bun that is being produced to celebrate the Year of the Pig, which started yesterday and will continue with two weeks of festivities. “It’s not a one-man job,” says Shing, “it’s like a production line here.”
So it’s all hands on deck this morning — including mine. I am enlisted to help out making a batch of pig bao buns. The gist: a pinch of beetroot powder is mixed in with sugar, yeast, milk and wheat flour to turn the sesame bao mixture pig-pink, before it’s kneaded, rolled into a doughy tube, then chopped into slices and rolled into little balls. Next, they are popped into the oven for three hours on a slatted bamboo steamer tray, where they double in size. Then they’re ejected, before proofing for a further 15 minutes on a marble counter, and then being slit, deep-fried and stuffed with cod stained black by squid ink.
The professionals perform this process repeatedly with ruthless execution. My own creation/consumption ratio is a deleterious 1:3.
But who can blame me? A A Gill once labelled BAO’s eponymous buns “sticky crack”, since they’re such moreish mouthfuls that, on a tickbox paper menu that allows customers to check off which fillings they want, BAO had to add an “all of them” option. Some customers tick it twice.
BAO’s story doesn’t qualify as an out-of-nowhere success, since steamed buns have been a staple of rural kitchens in China for thousands of years. Momofuko’s David Chang had also introduced London to a breakfast version with bacon and egg a few years before. BAO was also backed by investment from the Sethi family’s JKS Restaurants (which owns Trishna, Gymkhana, Kitchen Table and Lyle’s).
Still, when the first BAO burst on to London’s radar in 2015 in Lexington Street, Soho, Taiwanese bao were relatively unheard of beyond their Netil Market pop-up in Hackney (they’re still there for three hours every Saturday).
“There wasn’t much knowledge about Taiwanese cuisine when we started, says Shing. “I think the craze for street food was just starting to find its feet.”
Next month BAO opens a fourth site in Borough Market, more “fun and garish”, according to Shing, with — as well as normal bao bun service — rolling shutter fronts, a seasonal display of fruits such as papaya and watermelon, and Japanese chūhai, a sake sour which, combined with fruit, makes a refreshing shōchū highball.
Chinese dining has been on the rise in London, and Chinese New Year is a perfect excuse to indulge. “The done thing for us is a Cantonese feast, and red envelopes filled with cash, which are given to people who aren’t married to bring them good luck”, says Wai.
At BAO’s sister tea house XU, in Rupert Street, celebrations include a lion dance and mahjong club. “During our childhood we celebrated, along with half of Nottingham, at a big banquet with live music, opera, a lion dancer and firecrackers to ward away evil.”
Outside the West End, The Berkeley in Knightsbridge is turning out delectable swine-faced macarons to celebrate. Duddell’s in London Bridge is toasting the New Year with an array of dishes: sea cucumber and abalone served with shimeji mushroom.
Murger Han, meanwhile, is offering a free pork murger (a wheat-flour batter burger bun baked in a clay oven) with every order of pork biang biang noodles and bubblewrap waffle at its sites in Euston and Mayfair, while in Chinatown the restaurant Er Mei is offering four homemade sichuan soy sauce and minced pork buns for £4.50.
Nearby at Bubbledogs, feast on a one-off hotdog: the Lucky Pig-Pork frankfurter, topped with braised pork belly, char sui ketchup, pickled cucumber and a sesame garlic chili sauce. Those of a sweet dental disposition will enjoy the BubbleOink waffle from Hong Kong Egg Waffle in Soho throughout February — a warm waffle rolled into a cone and filled with ice-cream, fruit, sauce and nuts.
