BAO Soho
Bao are beautiful. Delicate white, slightly steamed buns, folded around a delicious filling (traditionally pork, 'gua bao'), bao are in the upper echelon of street food, right next to the taco, tteokbokki and vada pav. While still fairly new to these shores (and so it'll be interesting to see where enterprising chefs take it), I'm infatuated with bao, and so was very looking forward to this excursion to BAO Soho.
A small space with room for around 20 diners at any one time, BAO feels like a perfect hole in the wall (chefs slinging plates out to the wait staff via a literal hole in the wall) for some fast and tasty street food. Similar to dim sum-dedicated restaurants where you mark your choices in pencil on the menu, I jotted down my choice of four plates (two xiao chi and two bao) and a Taiwan beer, seeing as BAO leans heavily into the Taiwanese style of bao.
First came the Daikon bao (the only vegetarian steamed bao available on the menu, sadly). I have cooked with daikon before, and know it to be an extremely versatile root vegetable; whether grated or sliced, augmented with chili or left alone, it's quite delicious in any and all configurations. What I wasn't expecting was the way they prepared the daikon here. A thin slice was placed on top of a larger mass of daikon that had been breaded and deep fried, causing the daikon inside to have a mushy consistency. Coupled to the hot sauce beneath it, this very much resembled a Taiwanese take on a Vada Pav. And it was simply delicious.
Next came the Mapo Aubergine Chi Shang Rice, the aubergine being cooked until extremely soft, the accompanying sauce spicy but with a robust flavour, rather similar to katsu. The short grain rice was soft and separate - overall a well-prepared dish.
After this, I had the scallop with yellow bean garlic. The scallop came on the half shell with coral attached, and was nicely cooked. Unfortunately the flavour pairing was lacking, resulting in the dish not quite being able to stand on its own.
Finally, for what passes for dessert, I had the Fried Horlicks (malted milk ice cream) bao. A good and clever choice of dessert, to adapt the main staple of the restaurant by frying the bun so that it can carry a scoop of ice cream by being considerably less absorbent than a steamed bao, the final plate was a nice mirror to the opening. A fitting refrain.
Value for Money? For four courses and a beer, I paid £31, which included the service charge. Definite value for money, especially as this caters much more to carnivores.
Would I return? Yes! Give me 5 daikon bao NOW.
