Opened late last year, Bao Wow is one of the shops that have jumped on the bandwagon of the craze for steamed white buns. The hand-sized buns served at this sleek 18-seat outlet take inspiration from Taiwanese gua bao, and are made on the premises.
The menu offers six bao (HK$58 for two), plus a daily special, which, in our case, was the coconut curry chicken bao (HK$38 for one). We ordered a bao platter (HK$168), which has one of each.
The six bao were served in two big bamboo steamers, and we were disappointed that they were only slightly warm and quite stiff to the touch. Luckily, the interesting fillings made up for it. Our favourite was the original gua bao, in which the tender braised pork belly, Chinese relish, fresh coriander, crushed peanuts and Taiwanese red sugar combined to make a satisfying bite.
Teriyaki tofu, a vegetarian option, was surprisingly good. The melt-in-the-mouth fried egg tofu went very well with the shiitake mushroom, which was rich in flavour thanks to the teriyaki sauce.
None of the other bao was memorable. The sesame ginger pork chop had a bland dressing and a hard and chewy piece of deep-fried meat, which completely extinguished our urge to order the dessert of deep-fried baowich with vanilla ice cream (HK$38).
Our side of kimchili cheese fries (HK$48), which had a spicy minced meat sauce with kimchi and a generous helping of melted cheese on top, was tasty, though. And we were happy to have Taiwanese drinks such as Apple Sidra (HK$15) and winter melon tea (HK$15) to go with our meal.