Fast Food… Chinese-Style

I am sure it has not escaped you that, in recent days, I have been rather, shall we say, pre-occupied with sandwiches. No, wait… please don’t switch blogs… not just yet… Today’s post is not about sandwiches, I promise. At least, not strictly speaking.

For lunch today, I had the Chinese version of a sandwich or a burger. Actually, I would consider this to be the original Chinese fast food. Forget burgers, forget sandwiches… for the Chinese, this has probably been the foremost “food on the go” since ancient times. What am I talking about? Why, the humble steamed bun… pau… bao, or whatever you may wish to call it, of course.

If I may say so myself, the pau is actually more convenient than the hamburger. Like its American counterpart, it consists usually of meat sandwiched within some bread. Only in our case, the bread fully envelops the meat, and thus eliminates the risk of the meat slipping out from the sides as you bite into the bun. I am sure almost all of us has experienced this at least once… you are in a rush, perhaps lunching as you drive or lunching at your work desk… you bite heartily into your hamburger… plop!… the meat pattie, ketchup, mayo, salad and whatever else was between the two halves of the bun slips without warning, messily, chaotically onto your lap, your keyboard… and there goes your favorite outfit… This doesn’t happen with a pau.

Plus, making the pau is a convenient one step process. The meat is steamed together with the bread – no hassle, no grease. And it is always served piping hot, straight from the steamer.

Much as I like burgers, and I really do, if I am given a choice, I would usually go for the pau. It is tasty and filling. It is cheap and convenient. For half the price of a burger, one can get a big chunk of juicy, moist and succulent meat enveloped by a layer of soft, tender steamed dough. It is a meal in itself.

My love for the steamed bun stems from childhood…

One of my most vivid food memories from my early childhood is the eating of a huge (I was much smaller then) meat pau for lunch. I was probably about 3-4 years old. And sometimes, when I got off the school bus at noon, mum would be waiting for me at the foot of our block of apartments, and together hand-in-hand we would stroll across the street to the neighbourhood pau shop and buy two “big paus” (da bao). We would then stroll home, and sit together, happily munching on our paus. Of course, childhood memories are often filtered through rose-tinted emotional lenses, but I do remember the wonderful warm feeling of just me and mum, sitting at the dining table, enjoying an incredibly simple lunch of a steamed meat bun. And so, for the unprincely sum of around S$0.60 to S$1.00 (if I recall correctly, I think each bun, in those days, was around S$0.30 to S$0.50), both our tummies were warmed and filled. The food may have been humble, but I felt like a princess.

I remember the bun was so big, it was almost a third the size of my face! And I had trouble biting fully into it. I would take small nibbles, working inwards from the edges… savoring in turn the soft, fluffy, warm white bun, then the steaming hot, salty, juicy, very flavorful meat. And through it all, there was always a sense of anticipation… waiting for my favorite part of the pau. I would slowly bite and munch until I hit the jackpot… that small wedge of hard-boiled egg hidden somewhere within that huge chunk of meat. And a grin would light up my face. And usually, mums being mums, my mum would pass me her wedge of egg too. Wow, double jackpot! I really felt like a princess.

So today, I want to pay tribute to the pau or bao. These are some of my favorite paus and pau shops…

Paus come either as savory or sweet. The most common savory fillings would be meat – pork, chicken or BBQ pork (char siew). There are also, of course, vegetarian vegetable buns too. And the sweet paus traditionally come filled with red bean paste (tau sar) or lotus seed paste (lian yong). Nowadays, there are new-fangled sweet fillings like pandan, corn, yam and even durian!

Let’s talk about the meat baos first. Most common are the da baos (literally, “big pau”) and char siew (BBQ pork) paus.

The da bao is called big pau, well, simply because it is big. Yes, the Chinese can be very literal sometimes! The da bao is approximately double the volume of a standard char siew pau…

Inside the da bao is usually either pork or chicken.

You know that neighbourhood pau shop my mum and I would buy our da baos from, way back when I was a little girl? That was Kong Guan. It has of course now grown from that tiny pau shop in Eng Kong Gardens into a listed company churning out hundreds of thousands of steamed buns every year. It still produces the da bao, but sad to say, while we still love some of its other paus, its version of da bao no longer ranks among our favorites.

As of today (why today? you’ll find out later), this one ranks as our sole favorite da bao…

This is Teck Kee Tanglin Pau’s chicken da bao. The bun is very generously filled with flakes of chicken meat. It is very lean, with hardly any skin or fat – just the way I like it. And yet, the meat is incredibly moist, succulent and tender. Rich, flavorful juices ooze out of the meat with every bite. The filling is neither under-flavored nor overly salty. The meat is well-marinated and cooked just right. And of course, they still include that all-important wedge of hard boiled egg. At S$1.40 (US$0.80), it is an incredibly affordable meal.

These are the da baos from Tiong Bahru Bao Shop, another of our regular bao stops. My mum bought these for our lunch today – one chicken da bao and one pork da bao. This was what prompted my spurt of nostalgia and inspired this post. I suddenly remembered all those times, as a little girl, when my mum bought two da baos for our lunches. Unfortunately, today’s lunch was a tad disappointing…

But first, how do you tell the chicken from the pork? The one with the orange dot is the pork da bao (above).

This is the chicken da bao…

When I cut open my chicken da bao today, I was in for a little surprise. It looked completely different from the last time I had Tiong Bahru da bao, and from all the previous times I have had their chicken da bao.

Previously, the filling was one entire piece of chicken thigh meat, beautifully marinated in dark soy sauce. It was juicy, tender, succulent, flavorful and just very tasty. And of course, you knew it was the "real thing"… one whole piece of chicken thigh… not a mass of minced meat. A piece of chicken cooked whole invariably has a completely different bite and texture from that of minced meat. That was what I liked about the Tiong Bahru chicken da bao. It was different from all the rest. And so it had ranked securely, together with Teck Kee’s chicken da bao as my two favorite big paus. Depending on the texture I was hankering after, I would alternate between the two.

Today, my chicken big pau came with just one small (oh, okay, medium) sized chunk of chicken, and the rest was minced chicken (or at least it tasted like chicken) meat. Hmmm…

It still tasted pretty good – lean meat that was flavorful, juicy and succulent. But it just wasn’t the same. If I had wanted minced meat, I would have gone for Teck Kee’s version with chunks of meat, which even comes with the egg. Tiong Bahru has never included the egg in their chicken da bao, but I was willing to forego that for the texture of their whole piece of chicken thigh.

Now, their chicken da bao looks rather similar to their pork da bao…

My mum had the pork da bao today (on the left). Her only comment was: “they have changed the recipe”. And that said it all. Plus, there was no egg.

However, Tiong Bahru Bao’s char siew pau (BBQ pork bun) still ranks as our all-time favorite char siew pau. My mum has, on various occasions, declared it “the best char siew pau in Singapore”.

I too have to admit it is truly very, very good. Unlike a lot of the other char siew paus, this one is almost exclusively lean meat. (Although admittedly, there are some people who like their char siew paus with 50-70% fat instead of lean meat). Even though the meat is so lean, it is incredibly moist and tender. And here the char siew meat is cooked Hong Kong style – marinated in dark soy sauce and sugar. When cooked, the sugar caramelizes given an absolutely gorgeous flavor and color. Nicely sweet, salty and flavorful all at the same time. There is none of the usual red coloring in this meat filling – just natural flavors. I keep repeating myself, but the meat is so juicy, moist, very tender and succulent. Sublime!

So far, all the above paus have what I call “local skin” (I don’t know the technical name for it). The dough, although light and soft, is fairly dense and somewhat compact. This compares with what I call “Hong Kong dough”, which is fluffy…

This is admittedly not the best fluffy char siew pau that one can find. I bought it the other day whilst in Chinatown meeting a client. I was feeling hungry and bought it on my way home. I didn’t even look at the shop’s name from where I bought it. I passed by, saw it and bought it. There are better made versions, but it makes for good comparison of the different dough types. I like the the “Hong Kong dough” slightly more than I do the “local dough”. The former is usually only found in Cantonese restaurants that serve dim sum. On the whole, Singapore paus have the “local dough”.

However, regardless of the type of dough used, the bun should be soft, light and tender. And very importantly, the dough should not stick to the back of your teeth when you bite into it! That is a good gauge of how well made the dough is!

This Chinatown char siew pau has the normal bright red-colored meat filling…

You will notice that a lot of char siew paus have a mish-mash of styles – Hong Kong-style char siew with a local dough, and local-style char siew with Hong Kong-style dough!

As for vegetable paus, I like the version made by an elderly lady at Farrer Road Market. She hand-makes only a limited number each day, and they sell out fast. I haven’t had them in a very long time, so I’m not sure whether she is still making them, or has retired, like she has mentioned she was planning to do.

Now, for the steamed buns with the sweet fillings.

My favorite is the red bean paste (tau sar) bun…

Our favorite remains Kong Guan’s version. The filling is generous, and more importantly the tau sar (red bean paste) does not ooze rivets of oil which can leave an over-rich, over-satiated feeling. The bean paste is smooth and not overly sweet. Nice!

On a little side note, Chinese tau sar paus use a dark (almost black) smooth red bean paste, very different from Japanese red bean paste buns where the bean paste is a reddish brown, and usually has pieces of red bean interspersed throughout the paste.

To tell a tau sar pau (red bean paste bun) from a lian yong bao (lotus seed paste bun), again look for the little orange dot. Tau sar comes without the dot, and lian yong with.

My mum also highly favors Kong Guan’s lian yong bao, because, she says, it is made with pure lian yong – i.e. lotus seed paste made purely from lotus seeds. A lot of the lian yong used in various Chinese buns, pastries and dim sum usually have either tapioca or sweet potato starch mixed into the paste, to add bulk and to enhance texture. Pure lian yong is a lot more costly.

Pure lian yong has a purer, lighter yellow color, compared to the duller and darker color of regular lian yong. I personally don’t have preferences either way. I enjoy pure lian yong. But I also like the darker lian yong, especially in a bun that comes with a whole or half a salted egg yolk. Beautiful partnering of sweet and salty I say.

For Kong Guan paus, very often we buy them in the frozen family packs. In this instance, I will without hesitation say the frozen version is as good as their freshly made paus. And it is so convenient. We almost always have a pack or two sitting in the freezer. Anytime anyone feels like a snack or a light tea, simply pop one of the frozen paus into a bowl, which in turn goes onto a metal rack set into a small saucepan filled with an inch or two of water. Just steam the pau from the frozen state, no need to thaw. And within 12 minutes or so, you are ready to bite into a piping hot, soft, fluffy pau that taste freshly made.

There are literally hundreds of both big and small pau producers on our tiny island. I have not tried them all. But amongst those that I have tried, which number quite a few, time and again, I have returned to my favorites... Tiong Bahru Bao, Teck Kee Tanglin Pau and Kong Guan. I do not claim that they are the tastiest in the land, and would love to discover other wonderful, shiok pau eats. So, all recommendations are welcomed.

And the next time you feel like a hamburger… how about a da bao instead?

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
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