New Restaurant: Bao – Steamed Bun

Last night a new restaurant opened up in Kuwait City called Bao that serves Chinese-style steamed buns (hence the name). Whenever a new restaurant opens up that brings something new to Kuwait I’m usually all over it which was the case here. I’ve had steamed buns before in Kuwait at Street by Al Makan, but to have a place that just focuses on them, even better.

The restaurant is cute looking with around 7 or 8 tables. They had just opened last night so there were only a few other tables occupied when I passed by. I looked at the menu and ended up ordering the following dishes:

Tamarind Drumstick KD2.700
Buttermilk deep fried boneless chicken drumsticks dressed in tamarind glaze.

Coconut Shrimp Bao KD2.000
Coconut crusted shrimp with sweet chili aioli and pickled cucumber and crispy carrot.

Brisket Bao KD2.000
10 hours slow cooked brisket with crispy onion, red chili and ranch sauce.

Sweet Potato Sticks KD1.000

They also brought me a complimentary salad to try:

Pomelo Salad KD2.700
Cubed avocado, pomelo, pomegranate, red cabbage, shredded cucumber and mint with crunchy edamame, tossed with a tangy sweet dressing.

The orders started coming out randomly with the brisket bao being served first followed by the complimentary salad, then the drumsticks, then the sweet potato and finally the coconut shrimp. I can’t fault them on that since they had literally just opened a couple of hours earlier, so obviously the kitchen still don’t have the timings down.

Everything was pretty good with the two bao’s I had ordered being delicious. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was the salad, but I’m generally not a salad guy with only a very few salads I like anyway. Right now they only have 9 different types of bao’s to choose from but once the restaurant officially opens they’re hoping to have around 16. One thing I really wanted to try but resisted were their desserts. They had two kinds of bao’s available, one involved fried donuts and a vanilla ice cream glaze while the other involved deep fried banana drizzled with Nutella. Both looked very tempting but decided to save them for my next visit. I ended up paying KD10 including drinks and tip. I was pretty full but if I hadn’t ordered a starter I think I would need three bao’s to fill me up. So price-wise, I wish the bao’s were like half a KD cheaper each.

Bao is currently in their soft launch phase with their opening hours being from 4PM to 10:30PM. They’re located in Kuwait City near the Sharq Police Station [Here is a Map]. All the photos in this post were taken from their instagram page since the lighting at night wasn’t great so my shots sucked.