Shanghai Street Food Tangent

Jian Bing Guo Zi - a kind of breakfast burrito - actually an eggy pancake filled with egg, spring onion, coriander, pickled vegetables and lajiao (chilli paste) and/or hoi sin sauce.

Cong you bing

Mystery of the Mantou Shanghai

mantou and sweet coffee - Shangers Brekkie of Champions

Ah Shangers - not the home of fluffy, doughy, steamed pork buns I had expected. One of the only such buns I experienced in the whole 6 weeks of an amazing China food journey  was breakfast on the first day. I ventured forth, bleary eyed on our first morning in Shanghai - the sun already moving in a blistering arc across the sky.

On the first street corner I came to - there they were: bāozi from Babi Mantou. The beauty of Babi is that they have a menu with some English on it - and all I had to do was point at the zhū ròu bāozi characters and say "qǐng liǎng ge" (two please). Done. These were as close to the Vietnamese Bánh Bao as I could imagine - a lovely savoury pork meatball inside a slightly sweet steamed fluffy dough. The meatball is mixed with cabbage, spring onion, ginger, garlic and have a zingy white peppery bite.

Over the next week or two, as I roamed the eat streets of Shanxi and Ningbo Lu, I also had a go at buying a pork bun at a few of these ubiquitous street stalls - but I am ashamed to say - my Mandarin let me down. There is generally no English menu at these joints and so the point and go method simply doesn't work.

A typical interaction would go - Me: "yŏu méi yŏu zhū ròu bāozi?" (do you have any pork buns?)  The shī fu looks quizzical and starts lifting the lids off every steamer, talking too quickly - possibly in Shanghainese which I don't understand. I might say "qǐng nǐ shuō màn yīdiăr" (can you speak more slowly). They don't - they just speak more loudly. Eventually I hold up my hand in a stop sign, point at a bun that looks like it may be a pork bāozi and say "Zhèige!" (this one!). So far I have had baozi full of vegetables - qingcai baozi  filled with marinated tofu, mushrooms and bok choy, spicy rice noodles, and...well - mystery meat - maybe chicken...but no pork.

Generally - Shangers is a baozi paradise - but we're talking Shengjian: small, pan-fried baozi and of course Xiaolong Bao from Xiao Yangs! My favourite breakfast dish was in fact Cong You Bing whipped up on the side of the road in our favourite eat street Shanxi Lu. See my handy-dandy street food round up for more.

Xiao Long Bao from Yangs.

Shenjian mantou - fabulous pork filled parcels baked golden brown on the bottom and sprinkled with
sesame seeds....the larger hungry-girl size...(niurou baozi).

...or Yang's diminutive version...

Shengjian mantou

...and Guo tie - pot stickers - juicy pork dumplings served fresh from the steamer on every street corner in our 'hood.

One baozi I just couldn't get behind was the Nan Xiang giant xiaolongbao with crab roe.

unfortunately for me - about as appetising as this looks

you can suck out the crab roe with a straw....yairs...

no. just no. 

...but  I digress... 

There are also mouth watering Taiwanese style bao - which are like sandwiches - the Gua Bao - braised pork belly with pickled greens, coriander, and peanut powder. Nom.

Of course Beijing also has a respectable line of ... no, let's save that for another post.

Oriental House, Melbourne University

Oriental House has recently had a bit of a makeover and ditched many of the old gloopy anglo-style Cantonese dishes, in favour of some reasonable mainland fare. There's an unapologetically fiery Sichuan chicken, a decent mapo dofu and the number one Beijinger comfort food - xī hóng shì chǎo jī dàn - fried Egg and Tomato.

My interest today, of course, is their chā shāo bāo 叉烧包.You have to get in at exactly the right time to grab one of these from Oriental House, on the ground floor of the Union Building at Melbourne University. Too early and they aren't ready, too late and they are all gone.

Accordingly I have had a few false starts.

叉烧 Chā shāo is the filling. It literally means 'fork-cooked'.
包 Bāo actually means bag or wrap - it's fair to translate it as bun for our purposes.

I am gearing up to take my search offshore very soon and so I need to force my palate to make the paradigm shift from Bánh Bao to chā shāo bāo. I have been practising ordering them in mandarin. It feels faintly ridiculous because each word is pronounced with the neutral tone which is weird and high. It also falls flat because either - none of the staff speak Mandarin OR (more likely) I speak terrible Mandarin. Every attempt so far has been futile - I have been too early or two late. Anyhoo - I digress.

The unprepossessing entrance to Oriental House.

BBQ Pork Bun for $1.80 - how does it compare?

Today I managed to hit the sweet spot (more prescient than I realised - see later) and I grabbed one hot from the steamer.

From an external viewpoint - it looks a bit like one of those bread sculptures I used to make as a child with fresh white bread. Cripes it does look like white bread smooshed into a rough bun shape. Not an auspicious start.

Oriental House BBQ Pork Bun

The guts of it is...well...there aren't many. Another bao suffering from a woeful filling to dough ratio. Oh woe is me.Dough is me...oh noh.

The texture of the dough is fluffy - but not good fluffy. I know this is fresh from the steamer because the grumpy shī fu had to go and check if they were ready. She grabbed this baby straight from the steamer and popped it in the bag.

So why is the dough so dry? Fluffly AND dry all at once. Bah! The dough is also... Very. Very. Very. Sweet.

innards

Inside there is a paucity of filling. It is comprised of loose, small and thinly sliced pieces of not easily identifiable meat - but passibly cha siu like. The loose pieces of flesh are almost bound by a sauce which is overpoweringly sweet. There is no hint of spice or meaty flavour. Consequently the flavour balance is all off - really just tipped to the maximum sweet end of the spectrum. If the meat is cha siu - the flavours are totally swamped.

I think you can see that the colour is also not something those with food dye allergies would wish to dwell upon too much.

I will not be back for this - the fried egg and tomato however, is entirely another matter.

BAO BATTLE: To's Bakery v Victoria Cake Shop in Footscrazy

Next stop, central Footscray for my current number one Bánh Bao.Two of Footscray's Bao emporia go head to head (or To to To?)

To's - touched by the hand of the gawdess

Plump Bánh Bao fill the window display. I always pray there will be more than one in the bain-marie (although eating two of these babies never ends well). Hot and fresh straight out of the steamer - I am currently convinced it doesn't get any better than this. This is hands down my favourite way to spend $3 on a Saturday morning post-Footscray market expedition

Victoria Cake Shop

Victoria Cake Shop's bao are stacked in their metal display/steamer just as they are in Hanoi. Unfortunately my bao eating in Vietnam went largely undocumented but I stopped and bought a bao every time the steely glint of one of these displays caught my eye.


At $1.80 - Victoria Cake Shop's offering is almost half the price of To's. I always think of these as the poor cousins. Let's see how they compare...

Guess which is which...

The size difference is significant.

shiny Victoria Cake Shop bao

The VCS bao is much whiter - which is generally prized in bao dough. The VB bao also has the lovely sheen on its skin which generally foretells of a lovely dough.

To's dough is very firm (but still moist) and is missing the glossy sheen. It is not, however, without shine, mind.

So - to the internal examination:

VCS:

Ruh-roh. We got a poor filling to dough ratio going on here..

D'OH! Too much dough. [chanting]

Too much dough

Too much dough

Too much dough

Too much dough

Too much dough

...ok - shhhhhhhhhhhh

To's:


Hooray! That's my champ. The odds were stacked from the start - these really are may favourites.

Look at this baby - perfect ratio of inner to outer.



The flavours? I thought you'd never ask.



To's dough is really not sweet at all - there is only the mildest hint of sweetness. It balances beautifully with the filling which is really, really good. The flavours are strong and distinct but not overpowering each other. There is a slightly spicy note and a nice roundness brought out by the onion.



VCS's dough is really very sweet - especially in contrast to To's. The texture of the dough is actually very good - and there is SO MUCH OF IT compared to the filling. The VCS filling was very understated. Not unpleasant but not at all sufficiently flavoursome to distinguish itself from the sweet dough.



I think you know who the winner is in this BAO BATTLE.

Nam Loong Restaurant

223 Russell St

These bao have a reputation which precedes them. In fact if you google 'best bao in Melbourne' these rank up the top. (If you google 'best naked bao in Melbourne'...well, I hope your pop-ups are disabled). Again, I digress...

 At $1.80 - they are very cheap...er...economical.

In rush hour there is a very high turn over. These babies are very, very fresh. Sat in a steamer which fits only 10 or fewer, they are flying out the door.  Literally. Accordingly, getting in the door and to the counter at lunch time is no mean feat. There is a little bit of Shanghai here - I was pushed aside several times by those who prefer to eschew the queue. That was fine, it gave me time to appreciate the full range of fantastic snacks on offer.

Small but really good ratio of filling to dough. The dough was soft and pliable and only mildly sweet. Overall the dough had a really good fresh texture. This dough has that nice sheen on the outside.

the outside

So to the filling - I am happy to say it is in good quantity. There is a very well balanced amount of sauce to meat. For me the meaty flavour of the roast pork is important - in these little beauties clear flavours of cha siu are evident. The sauce balance is sweet but with a tang. Really. Really. Good.

innard to outard ratio is good

sauce to meat ratio also good - that's appetising right?

Verdict: well deserved reputation. Really delicious and worth a little detour to grab one.

Home made cha siu bao with MP

It seems appropriate to begin this journey with a home made attempt. I take absolutely no credit for this effort - apart from being number one taster.

First the pork neck is given the treatment.

The neck

The recipe - thank you Gourmet Traveller.

The surgeon begins

We need several long 2cm-thick pieces. Then stab it a few times to let the marinade soak in.

The red fermented dofu paste

...pungent...

The red fermented bean curd is smooshed together and combined in a bowl with hoisin sauce, honey, light soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, five-spice powder and a large pinch of white pepper.

the other ingrediments

a good dollop of hoisin

into the ziplock baggie with the meat 

The whole thing now goes into a ziplock bag and into the fridge for a couple of days.

Into the oven for an hour and a half...

ohh baby - lookin' good!

The final product was completely awesome. We have eaten it in stirfrys and on its own...but of course it is also the central plank of the cha siu bao.

Now to the BAO...

The main event - the bāozi....

The nomtastic cha siu is now encased in lovingly crafted dough and steamed to perfection.

MP 'cheated' just a little - she made the dough with a (gasp) packet mix.

A quick perusal of the ingredient list on the packet quickly discloses that this is still the real deal. so corner cutting is forgiven in the interests of expediently getting the bao into the plate...

portion out the dough

craft into discs of dough

envelope the delicious filling 

begin the tricky folding manoeuvre

...carefully...

...almost there...

ready for steaming

off we go...

TA DAAAAAA - the finished product

...and the verdict? hěnhǎo chī 很好吃 thơm ngon ...delicious.

Proof is in the tasting - mmmmmmm baotastic!  We're off to a great start!

However - will these be the best? Let's make our way hither and yon - I'll be the judge of that...