Bao & Bing, London 04-2019

Ever since Yum Bun branched away from Broadway market and dropped its quality, Bao opened to horrendous queues but isn't that good (although I only tried it several years after opening) and these buns have become quite common, it's nice to find a place less central and luckily also giving a discount on the new menu. After all, £5 for a bao is pretty damn high but that's what has become these foods in London.

I noticed that they had a sign outside for Happy Hour 5-7pm on weekdays. The cocktails aren't cheap but they do look/taste good. And at £9-10 each, Happy Hour would be very happy. I tried the Kenting Boba (quiquiriqui mezcal, rum, taro, coconut cream, coconut milk, lemon juice, popping balls) £9.5 which was essentially a delicious taro coconut milk tea with pearls and a strange taste of rum. I didn't detect any smokiness from the mezcal. The milk tea base itself was remarkably good with the frothy furry texture of taro. The normal taro milk tea was also pretty good but less thick and coconut.

There is a downstairs opium bar looking red room for drinks and a few little board games. That would be a wonderful place to relax for Happy Hour drinks.

- Smacked cucumbers £3.5 - pretty expensive for cucumber marinated in chilli oil and vinegar. Something fresher though;
- BBQ corn with Taiwanese spices £3.7 - little cobs of corn slightly charred in a savoury sauce. The corn itself had been cooked too long though such that there was no bite left to the kernels. But it tasted really good;
- Dan Bing traditional £4.9 - a crisp crepe filled with vegetables. Very nice indeed but need to eat it while hot and the crepe remains crisp;
- Taiwan beef noodle soup (rich beef bone broth, slow cooked beef shin, wheat noodles, chilli, bok choi, cilantro, spring onion) £11.9 - a remarkably excellent bowl of noodle soup with the delicate chunk of beef shin easily to pull apart, and the broth thick with beef and gelatin and coating the noodles and your mouth. It looked fiery and had red chilli slices but overall had little heat. I would definitely come back for this;
- Pork belly bao (mint, red cabbage, char siu sauce) £4.9 - probably the best of the tried baos with a not too fatty pork belly slice and a sliver of slightly crisp, slightly chewy skin tucked on the inside. The bao itself is good - reasonable size, very soft and fluffy, and not the dense dry stuff of Yum Bun in Spitalfields;
- Crispy shredded duck bao (cucumber, spring onion, hoisin) £4.8 - the ingredients list would usually make this my favourite and it was ok with a large amount of duck. The flavouring was mild and really needed more cucumber and spring onion to balance it out;
- Panko shrimp bao (cilantro, red onion, chiu chow mayo) £5.5 - two perfectly fried crisp prawns with mayo. Not bad at all;
- Shiitake friiter (mizuna, cilantro, chiu chow mayo, teriyaki) £4.7 - oddly while the prawns were crisp, the fried mushroom wasn't. It was juicy and ok;
- Wheelcake vanilla & matcha £3 - they have the open pan at the bar, but it is used to reheat the premade wheelcakes. As a result the outside was hot, the inside was not so and therefore the textures weren't right. The pastry was too plastically and the layered filling pretty but not soft. Maybe this is how they are meant to be and I just don't like them so much.

Overall the food is better than Bao. The noodles and cocktail were the clear winner for me with a few other notable dishes too. The service is also often without much of a smile. Not many words, thanks or gratitude. This could be worked on.