Eating Out: Gongfu Bao’s breakfast-lunch dishes simply as crave-worthy

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Gongfu Bao
365 Financial institution St., 343-341-0999, gongfu.ca
Open: Wednesday to Saturday 9 a.m. to three p.m. (cafe), 4 to 10 p.m. (bao bar), closed Sunday to Tuesday
Costs: breakfast and lunch gadgets $4 to $22, dinner gadgets $5 to $20.50
Entry: ramp to entrance door

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The “bao bros” want to sit back.

This advice is for individuals who in latest months went to the Centretown eatery Gongfu Bao for lunch, however with a chip of entitlement on their shoulders.

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The bros, as Gongfu Bao’s chef-owner Tarek Hassan succinctly nicknamed them, demanded handcrafted Chinese language steamed buns with savoury fillings — specialties which have put the “bao” in Gongfu Bao since 2013, when Hassan began promoting them from a meals cart beside Confederation Park.

After Hassan’s Financial institution Avenue cozy store opened in 2018, it constructed a gradual following of bros and non-bros who craved contemporary, fluffy buns crammed with the toothsome brisket, fried rooster or no matter particular surprises Hassan might dream up.

However, a couple of months in the past, Hassan markedly rejigged his enterprise. To the dismay of some bros, Gongfu Bao now serves buns solely at dinner, beginning at 4 p.m. On these days, from 9 a.m. to three p.m., it opens as a restaurant. Extra particularly, it’s one thing akin to the sort of Hong Kong-style dinner generally known as a cha chaan teng in Cantonese.

However again to the bros. They got here to Gongfu earlier than 4 p.m. and grow to be irate as a result of no buns have been available. Some left one-star evaluations on-line after they felt disadvantaged, Hassan advised me.

They don’t know what they missed. Having sampled from Gongfu’s new breakfast/lunch menu a couple of instances, I’m much more excited by its concise checklist of choices than I’m by the trusty buns. The bros must recover from themselves and check out Hassan’s very good daytime gadgets.

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I’m already obsessive about Hassan’s corned beef and egg bolobao ($12). This dreamy sandwich stars a skinny slab of house-made, crisped, however tender corned beef, markedly higher than, however not unrelated to the tinned product of final resort. It’s layered with egg, tomato and chili crisp, all framed by a puffy milk bun that has a barely candy cookie high. That baked merchandise is a deal with all its personal ($6), out there together with different made-daily, bread-y treats to be loved on website or to go. The total sandwich creation, an elevated riff on not one, however two Hong Kong snacks, is the type of factor that will go viral, cronut-style, if it have been made in Brooklyn or San Francisco.

Very totally different, but additionally very spectacular was the HK French toast ($10), a custard-filled slab of milk bread, dipped in egg after which fried after which served with salted butter and maple syrup. Happily for any bao lovers studying this, this candy breakfast merchandise can also be out there for dessert within the evenings.

At lunch, I’ve gone to Gongfu for the pork chop bun ($16), which starred a brined, breaded and fried pork chop topped with pickled shallots and lettuce on a flax oatmilk bun. That, plus a facet of vegan mushroom congee ($4), a gingery, comforting rice porridge, left me heat and content material for the remainder of the day.

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I’ve lingered at Gongfu, utilizing its free wi-fi and nursing huge, foamy cups of creamy, Hong Kong-style milk tea ($5) or yuenyeung ($5), a 50/50 mix of espresso and milk tea that you just must strive since you don’t know what you’re lacking, bro.

(For comparability’s sake, I must strive the milk tea served at Cafe Orient in Chinatown. Hassan, a real devotee of Cantonese and Hong Kong delicacies, particularly after his go to there in 2017, names that cafe as a peer of kinds.)

I’ve introduced house bakeshop treats from Gongfu, together with egg tarts ($6), coconut buns ($6), plus beef and vegan hotdog buns ($6). You will discover comparable baked items at some Asian grocery shops in Ottawa, though Gongfu’s gadgets, made every morning by co-owner and head baker Emily Wooden, are small-batch wonders. My telephone wants an app or an alert to indicate me precisely when Wooden’s baked items have emerged heat from the Gongfu oven at their peak for buyer enjoyment.

It’s additionally been laborious for me to depart Gongfu with out a chocolate chunk brown butter cookie or three ($3, $8 for 3) as a result of they’re irresistible.

Name the cafe what you’ll: a pivot, a side-hustle or a brand new model. Hassan advised me he made the change for 2 causes — to fulfill himself creatively and, maybe extra importantly, to maintain his standard, however profit-strapped enterprise going.

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Hassan advised me that Gongfu needed to hunker down earlier than this fall, lowering its opening hours to outlive. He discovered that opening extra days solely unfold out his bao enterprise and didn’t improve it.

Hassan candidly wrote on Gongfu’s social media final month: “Please be sort (and beneficiant when you can afford it) to your native small companies. Many people might look like OK, however are perpetually on the brink and underneath insufferable pressures.

“For those who like the truth that we’re open Wednesdays and have added extra hours, present some love. We’d like it proper now greater than you may suppose!”

The cafe is supposed to draw new prospects or lure bao followers to strive one thing new, and so they need to.

Whereas Gongfu’s namesake buns are nonetheless best-in-Ottawa treats, the cafe gadgets deserve their very own following that’s at the very least as enthusiastic and constant.

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