yummy pretty things: bao bei chinese brasserie review

I've been really wanting to try Bao Bei, a new chinese brasserie located in Chinatown, so my husband I went for our wedding anniversary last week. Bao Bei is a hip new trendy tapas style chinese restaurant. It's old style chinese decor with a bit of a Shanghai feel, dim lighting, great ambiance and nice bar, make it a great place to sample a variety of delicious tapas with a group of friends or with your date. The food is authentic chinese, prepared with high quality ingredients, you could really taste the quality. All the menu items range from $4 $6-$9 $10-13(meatier dishes) each so you get a great variety, the waitress told us the magic number is around 5 items among 2 people, it was just perfect we were full but I still had room for dessert of course.

We had the Mantou (steamed buns) with braised beef shortrib, hoisin, scallions, pickled cucumber, and roasted peanuts. Hands down my favorite dish. The little buns were really soft delicate, the beef was soo tender and delicious. They were topped with hoisin sauce and pickled cucumber, and excellent combination of flavours. I had only wished we ordered more, but didn't want to over eat. Dish number two was the pearl bok choy with pork and black bean sauce, it was my second favorite. The sauce was amazing. My third favorite was the house special fried rice, the exotic mushrooms made it extra delicious.
Then we had the Shao Bing, which consisted of sesame flatbread with braised pork butt, Asian pear, pickled onion and mustard greens presented as a sandwich. It was pretty good, but not my favorite dish, there was just a little something missing I felt. We then had the Pork Pot Stickers, they were nice and juicy with good flavour. Finally for dessert I had the Almond Panna Cotta with lemon gastrique. The panna cotta was delicious and rich, the gastrique sauce was sweet and a bit sour but a bit too overpowering. I would have much enjoyed the panna cotta on its own or with a nice rasberry coulis instead.

Overall, I could taste the quality of the ingredients in the food. The cocktails were very cool and yummy, apparently the owner used to bar tend at Chambar I believe). I was happy with everything we ordered and can't wait to go back and order my favorites amongst the new items that I didn't order. You'll love the food, the drink, the crowd and neat decor.