A long time ago I tried David Chang's bun at Momofuku. A few months later I discussed Yum Bun in the schoolyard at Broadway market. I wanted to setup my own bao place but time, money and life got in the way. And within that year the gua bao's exploded everywhere. My friend gets upset everytime Bao is mentioned thinking that could have been us. Oh well.
I finally tried it many years later at 5pm when there were no crowds queueing. It's honestly pretty freaking expensive for what you are getting, but worth one try...
Peanut milk tasted as you expect - peanuts blended into a milky drink. I liked it!
- Scallop, yellow bean garlic £3.5 - one scallop in shell grilled very well with a tasty savoury bean liquid;
- Trotter nuggets £4 - pig trotter meat and cartilage deep fried into a salty nugget. Not bad;
- Classic bao (braised pork, peanut powder, fermented greens, coriander) £4.75 - wasn't a big fan of the flavours nor feel that the peanut powder went with it. The braise is quite sweet. I'm sure the confit version would have more my style;
- Lamb shoulder bao (lamb shoulder, coriander sauce, garlic mayo, soy pickled chilli) £5 - bits of slightly stringy meat with a more savoury and slight chilli edge, but again not overly exciting;
- Fried Horlicks icecream bao (Horlicks icecream, fried bao) £4.5 - clearly the winner of the lot with fried bun similar (but less sweet) to the glorious fried mantou rolls and a slab of caramel icecream wedged in.
The buns themselves were decent and a lot better than the terrible quality at Yum Bun's new stand in Spitalfields. However they were tiny and just couldn't represent good value. With the ratings either people have no idea and are rating based upon the queue anticipation or the quality has slipped.
The also clearly forgot about our two savoury baos as we waited 25mins after the scallop and nuggets. A waiter was surprised we were still waiting although expressed nothing over it. It wasn't enough to remove the service charge although tempting...
I won't be back here.