Mr Bao is one of my favourite places in London. The food is always impeccable and the service is great. I would eat there every night if I could!
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Food was terrific, but service was sluggish, if friendly. We had to ask twice for tap water, and a glass of white wine took so long to arrive we had to enquire a second time as well. The house white, a Chardonnay, was much better than average and priced at £4.30 for a large glass. Very dry with low acidity, so a really good match with Asian food. There was nice attention to detail. A three minute timer was brought with the pot of tea I ordered.
Portions are rather dainty, but that's only fair given the low prices of all the items we had. It was really fun food.
I had a pulled pork bao which was meltingly soft. Meat had been braised in sweetened soy so was very tasty. It also contained a little Chinese pickled mustard greens and a sprinkle of sweetish powdered peanut.
We shared a little portion of sesame spinach (priced at £1.70), which was tender baby spinach salad in a tasty sesame dressing. Very nice. Must start doing this at home.
The fried chicken with miso mayo was fantastic. Good crispy coating, not greasy, succulent nuggets of leg meat.
Our sweet potato chips were not quite as successful. They had been battered and were quite oily tasting. My companion needed to order a second glass of wine to cut through the grease. A drizzle of wasabi mayo gave a nice kick. There was something else strange going on with the chips. Some of them were hot but others were cold.
Our light lunch for two with two rather generous tumblers full of very good house wine and a little pot of tea was £23 before service. Next time I want to order the chicken bao which looked terrific, being filled with kimchi and that fabulous fried chicken.
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Another day means another scoff. This time my stomach was leaning towards Mr Bao in Peckham, and so glad it did. Bao is a Taiwanese street food or snack, delicious steamed buns consisting of different fillings from pork belly to shitake mushrooms.
Bao is bang on trend at the moment, and rightly so. If you have no idea what Bao is, then you are missing out bigtime and need to go face plant one now! Obviously, read this first, then go and scoff your face.
Mr Bao can get busy and you may have to wait for a table. Luckily, they will take your number and call you back, whilst you go have drinks elsewhere. The call came a lot quicker than we expected, so the pint was downed and we were swiftly on our way.
We kicked off with some spicy edamame, pork dumplings and Taiwanese sausage. The edamame had a good kick and the dumplings, some good flavours going on. I could see the dumplings being made over the counter, so knew they wouldn’t disappoint. I’ve never had Taiwanese sausage before and wasn’t sure what to expect. They may have different spicing in the meat, but they did taste like other sausages. This is not a bad thing. Everyone loves a sausage, right?
Fried chicken with miso mayo… Boom! Succulent deep fried pieces with an added depth of ‘yes’ from the miso mayo made these bloody lovely. The Mr Bao, pork belly bao won the evening. A packed, pillow like bun, bursting with slow braised pork, pickles, peanut and coriander was seriously fricking good! If these came in man size, I would sleep in one.
The bao diddley chicken and beef brisket followed soon after for us to inhale. The chicken, fried (always a bonus) came with wasabi mayo and kimchi. It was a nice mouthful of food. However, if you’re not a fan of kimchi, like my dining partner, you may not enjoy it as much; it was pretty packed with the stuff. The beef was the special on that evening. Slow cooked, shredded, tender meat was extremely tasty.
Dessert was the Bao s’more and was everything you would want from a pud. A crispy bun, heavenly chocolate and a gooey toasted marshmallow, was perfect to end on. Unfortunately, my photo skills were lacking at this point, so my pic doesn’t do it justice.
Mr Bao also does a brunch menu and looking at the pictures online, it looks awesome. I love a good brunch, so I’ll definitely be back soon to check that bad boy out.
Like neighbouring Miss Tapas, Mr Bao is another fine example that Peckham is on the way up and another place for the ‘cool kids’ to hang out. In fact, I think they are married. I haven’t been stalking them on Instagram or anything. Seville looks a lovely place to get married, but honestly, no stalking going on here.
Like Jerry Maguire, this place will have you at Bao. Enjoy!
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