A relatively new kiosk called Bao Bao (宝包 bao3 bao1) has opened in the heart of Singapore's shopping district, selling traditional bao (Chinese steamed buns, also called "pau" in Southeast Asia or manju by Japanese) at reasonable prices. They also had some innovative flavours, and I made the trip down to try these - Orh Nee Bao, French Chocolate Lava Bao, Coffee Bao and Azuki Red Bean Mochi Bao. Orh Nee refers to a Teochew steamed dessert of sweet yam paste with gingko nuts. This post covers the first two flavours.
You need to order 6 for a box, excluding the chocolate lava bao, because they put that in a separate bag to prevent accidental spillage of the liquid filling on the other buns. At just S$1.20 for the coffee bao and $1.60 for the orh nee bao, it was perfect for a small eater like me who just wants a bite of everything and not more. French chocolate lava cost a bit more, I think it was $2.
French Chocolate Lava Bao
I tried the French chocolate lava bao first. It was surprisingly dark in colour, resembling black sesame paste much more than chocolate, as you can see. It did not seem brown either.
The fudge texture was perfect, neither too runny nor too sticky.
However, the taste wasn't like French chocolate at all, so it was a misnomer IMO. It tasted more like a dark and nutty melted version of the chocolate rice bits you easily get in Southeast Asia. There was little of the cocoa butter sweet creaminess, and it was more like a hollowed out nutty dark chocolate filling. It also doesn't have the usual cocoa powder fragrance that you get in hot cocoa drinks or cocoa powder bakes, nor did it taste like melted baking chocolate.
I would say it is still nice in and of itself, and I enjoyed it, but just don't go in expecting rich French chocolate. I don't know what they put in it, but perhaps it was so black because they didn't use the usual baking chocolate.
The good thing was that it wasn't too sweet, so if you're concerned that it will be sweet like chocolate fudge, you could still give it a try as it's less sweet than most chocolate fudge sauces I've tried. But IMO it's also ok to give it a miss.
One word of caution though - if they pack it separately in a plastic bag, tell them to leave it outside the box. In my case, they first put the plastic bag on the table where customers' hands touched, before they put it in the box and it came in contact with the other buns as you can see, so it was actually not very hygienic. They did it before I could tell them not to do it as I did not expect it. (In the first image above, I removed it from the plastic bag to take a picture at home.)
Orh Nee Bao
Next, I tried the orh nee bao. I enjoyed this a lot more. The texture of the filling does resemble the orh nee dessert a lot more, just more paste-like in texture, smoother and starchier, and no chunks of yam. There were little chunks of gingko nuts though, which were the slightly yellow bits in the picture.
The taste was also good, like a standard fragrant and earthy orh nee dessert (it reminds me of the one at Curry Times that I tried recently). There was no hint of coconut milk, and visually I did not notice any whiteness of coconut milk. It was just the plain yam and gingko taste.
It also was not too sweet, which was great. I'm glad I ordered two of these. I highly recommend this particular flavour of orh nee bao.
Discover other interesting bao
Comments
Post a Comment