Bao wow! Hong Kong comfort food comes to Manila

Little Bao, a famed casual dining restaurant from Hong Kong, recently concluded a pop-up in Manila. It's one of the places that have been saved on my Instagram folders since pre-pandemic. Every time we’re in Hong Kong, we are usually hosted by friends and family that I never had the opportunity to deviate from the group’s itinerary. So when I heard that they were coming to Manila, I immediately made the reservation the moment the link was released.

This pop-up was a collaboration between Tasteless Food Group led by Charles Paw and chef Pat Go of Your Local, JC Lo of Fine Dining PH, and, of course, chef May Chow of Little Bao HK. Chef May Chow brings a unique and fun spin to Hong Kong comfort food with her bao burgers. She is a Canadian-born, Hong Kong-based chef, an advocate for women empowerment and LGBTQ+ rights, and was awarded Asia’s Best Female Chef in 2017.

The menu was definitely scaled down than what is regularly available in the Hong Kong branches. Each diner is given one choice of main dish, side dish, and a drink. To start with, I had the Guavalada, a non-alcoholic drink with guava, passion fruit, grapefruit, and soda.

The rim was coated in a sweet and salty plum powder. The LB Caesar salad made use of local cured fish instead of anchovy for the dressing, as well as fermented black bean and panko for some crunch.

My order was the “stir-fried beef noodles” fries, which did taste like hofan yet in french fry version. It had scallions, beansprouts, onions, and Kowloon Soy Company Soy Sauce. As for the main dishes, I had the signature Iberico pork char siu bao topped with a cucumber leek salad and slathered with a ginger scallion mayo. In the photo is a non-alcoholic drink called Yuzu Maple Soda with yuzu, maple syrup, shiso, soda, and sea salt. The second main dish was the Szechuan Mala Fried Chicken from corn-fed yellow chicken tossed in Szechuan powder and served with pickled cucumber. 

I know the pork bao is the signature dish of Little Bao, however, I was absolutely blown away by the dessert. This was a collaboration dish between chef Pat and chef May. We were served an ice cream bao called the Pinoy Polvoron & Calamansi—toasted milk ice cream, calamansi caramel with pinipig crumble, and tultul salt, sandwiched between a deep-fried mini bun.