restaurants

Juicy Bao

One of the most popular establishments down Chinatown, Juicy Bao serves Shanghai-style baos along with a list of other Chinese dishes. There’s often lines out the door during dinner time, so it’s best to come in early! We came at around 3pm and were seated right away. The menu has a nice variety of Dim Sum and other Stir-Fry dishes. We were here mainly for the dumplings so we decided to get the Xiao Long Bao, Pan Fried Juicy Bao, Wonton in Peanut & Chilli, Pan Fried Pork Dumplings, and the Stir Fried Noodles with Seafood in XO Sauce. The XLB were huge in size - filled to the brim with delicious soup and pork meat. Despite its size, the skin is still quite thin. The Pan Fried Juicy Bao are always a must at a dumpling restaurant for us. The crispy bottom and the thick fluffy dough make a great combo. It’s just as juicy as the XLB inside. The Wonton dish was lovely. Although the wontons weren’t anything special, the chilli sauce was divine! Sweet, salty, sour, spicy, nutty - the flavours were complex and definitely made the dish. The Noodles with Seafood in XO Sauce were quite possibly our favourite dish of the night. The noodles are nice, thick and chewy, and are stir fried with a variety of veggies and seafood. The XO Sauce is really quite amazing, and all the flavours meddled perfectly together. Would definitely recommend trying this over the regular Shanghai Stir-fried Noodles. Service was very fast and staff were pretty friendly. It’s cheap but (very) good food. I can understand now why there’s always such a long line outside!