Last week I was in New York en route to Asia. A couple of Manhattan friends, novelist Monique Truong and restaurateur/chef Pichet Ong, suggested that I check out BaoHaus, a new Lower East Side snack joint serving up Taiwanese stuffed buns called gua bao. BaoHaus’s buns are not round, filled buns like the ones you get dim sum or the ones I made using refrigerated biscuit dough. Rather, they are mini sandwiches called gua bao.
The leavened bao dough is shaped into clamshells and steamed. Open up the resulting plain steamed rolls and slide a little morsel inside, such as red cooked pork belly or deep fried duck. (Cantonese roast duck is often served with steamed buns for you to make your own mini concoction.
Some describe gua bao as a hamburger, but I’m not sure. I suppose you could say that bao are Chinese buns so these are Chinese hamburgers. Any thoughts on whether gua bao are hamburgers or not?
The version at BaoHaus is Taiwanese, stuffed with a satisfying amount of pork belly, braised beef, or deep-fried tofu. Pichet and I like the pork belly best, though we also ate up the other two versions too!
Don’t expect a David Chang/Momofuku-esque pork belly bun here. Owner and chef Eddie Huang was born in the U.S. and raised by food savvy Taiwanese parents. His father ran a steakhouse and made Eddie work every job, though he never intended for his son to go into the restaurant business.
Eddie wanted the buns to taste like Taiwanese street food he’s had. “There’s good porky flavor in my buns because with Chinese food, you need to taste the pork,” Eddie said. “We balance the flavors, not too salty, not too sweet.” He’s got uppity Asian pride and love of food and cooking. His enthusiasm for running restaurant and Asian American foodways is honest.
BaoHaus stays true to its Asian roots but steps things up for the slightly edgy Lower East Side, which is next door to Chinatown and being gentrified. Go down the stairs into the small bao joint and there’s hip hop playing and wi-fi. Eddie’s brother will greet you with the blue and white menu. BaoHaus not ghetto, but rather cool and clever ghetto.
BaoHaus’s bao have quirky, clever names: Haus Bao (hanger steak), Chairman Bao (pork belly), Uncle Jesse (tofu). The buns are stuffed with the protein of choice, a lick of sauce, and crushed roasted peanuts, and cilantro. There may be some Haus relish which I couldn’t quite decipher. It’s a tasty mouthful and I could totally eat 2 gua bao in 1 sitting. Three BaoHaus bao was a stretch with my can of sasparilla.
Then there are the bao fries that are pieces of deep-fried bao dough finished with a light sweet sauce: black sesame, purple taro, durian, pandan or sesame butter and jelly. The fries are a nice afternoon sweet snack with tea.
Eddie knows his hipster crowd and dials in the Asian American cultural bent. For the “Straight Frush” combo, you select 3 baos and a free drink (Calpico is $1 extra). “Royal Frush” is for 6 bao and bao fries. Getting all of BaoHaus’s jokes – here it’s Asians people’s love of gambling and poor consonant pronunciation (some people can’t say the letters R and L) – gives you a certain sense of being an insider, part of a club.
The BaoHaus tagline is “Fresh off the Boat.” Don’t steal that. Eddie’s a former attorney (good Asian kid) and he’s trademarked his tagline.
New Yorkers are smart and open minded to new interpretations and presentations of food. BaoHaus is a cultural and culinary bridge that I hope many people will cross.
Note: Eddie Huang is coming to San Francisco for a Chairman Bao smackdown in late August. It's BaoHaus vs. Chairman Bao truck. Eddie's pissed that the Chairman truck took his Chairman Bao name.
He's also opening a new restaurant dedicated to Taiwanese street food called Xiao Ye. (See preview per erious Eats.)
Dennis M Reed (check the "Cooking - Food - Recipes - Cookbook Collections" link on my site. says
how about an appropriate dough and filling recipe?
Katy says
Hi Andrea
Robyn is absolutely right that the type of Guabao you both described here are more like pork sandwich than hamburger. One of the reasons why it is sometimes described as a hamburger is (other than generalization of a food) because you find the type of stuffs you find in burgers in these buns too – such as fish or chicken steak (equivalent to the Macdonald’s) as an alternate for those who do not like bread (Call it local variations if you want) - it's like the Japanese variations of rice burgers.
Not being fastidious about food labeling, but this bao is Taiwanese bun, not Chinese – it originated form Fuzhou and ‘Gua’ means to cut, to slice in the Hokkien Dialect. Because of its shape and inside – it is also called in Taiwanese slang ‘虎咬豬’ – literally tiger bite pig (tiger’s wide opened mouth is the sliced bun and pig is the inside). My favorite Guabao in Taipei put a slice of steamed Taro at the bottom which literally looks like the tongue in the mouth)
It is one of the two traditional ‘Wei Ya’ Festival (One of the three major Taiwanese festivals) foods – the shape of the bun resembles the shape of a purse – symbolize wealth and fortune.
I don’t know if you noticed, some of them had something stamped in red on the bun? That is to say traditionally it’s used as an offer to the God of Earth. (But I don't suppose you find this in US)
*I don't appreciate the signature bun named 'Chairman Bao Pork Bun' - obviously a play off words from 'Chairman Mao' - I know it's meant to be clever and it's America - but really, not nice - not nice at all. Call it a Taiwanese bun and name a bun after Chairman Mao - sorry, not funny at all. I don't buy the humor, not one little bit. And I hope Eddie Huang gets to read this - it's damn bad taste!!
I am from Taipei, by the way.
Marie Devereux says
"Not being fastidious about food labeling, but this bao is Taiwanese bun, not Chinese – it originated form Fuzhou and ‘Gua’ means to cut, to slice in the Hokkien Dialect." You just said gua bao weren't Chinese, only to say they originated from Fuzhou which is the capital of China's Fujian province. Not to mention people from Fuzhou don't speak Hokkien at all as they are a Min Dong people - not a Min Nan one.
"*I don’t appreciate the signature bun named ‘Chairman Bao Pork Bun’ – obviously a play off words from ‘Chairman Mao’ – I know it’s meant to be clever and it’s America – but really, not nice – not nice at all. Call it a Taiwanese bun" Well tough luck because they don't originate from in the first place. Your comment literally makes zero sense.
Andrea Nguyen says
Dennis -- use the dough recipe in Asian Dumplings. As for the filling recipes, I linked to the red cooked pork belly recipe. You've got the start for a guabao.
Katy: I was wondering if a Taiwanese or PRC person would be offended by the use of Chairman Mao's name for food branding. I was just in China and it's appropriate to show a modicum of respect when invoking his name.
That said, I so appreciate your explanation of guabao and your tongue-in-cheek(!) description of the taro. Doesn't gua (different character) also mean tongue?
Katy says
Andrea: My fav Guabao in Taipei is here:
http://katy-huiwen.blogspot.com/
Gua pronounced in Hokkien is 割(刈). Pronounced in Mandarin is 掛. So I am not sure what different character of gua also mean tongue, the character for tongue is 舌 - early forms of the character show a forked tongue thrust viciously out of the mouth - exemplifying the proverb 'The tongue is like a sharp knife; it kills without drawing blood'.
Of course it could be you pronouce gua in another dialect,which can mean something else and different character.
wayne wong says
is jazzed by growing attention given street foodian products. So what's in a name? How about "Bad-ass Bao Slider"? lol I can hardly wait until August for the Chairman Bao Smackdown. lol
Andrea Nguyen says
Katy: I was hastily trying to look up gua and somewhere along the line, I saw something about gua having a meaning of tongue. But it was late at night and obviously I was mistaken! Characters are beautiful but sometimes confounding things. Thanks for the clarification.
Wayne: BBS would be a nice name. Eddie and Co., if you're reading this, there's an idea for you.
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It looks very delicious. It is very interesting I want to try it. NO, I think I want to try to cook it. I hope I can.
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marlon says
The BaoHaus tagline is “Fresh off the Boat.” Don’t steal that. Eddie’s a former attorney (good Asian kid) and he’s trademarked his tagline.