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| - To be honest, I had put It's a Bao Time on my 'To Do' review list. I couldn't honestly come up with a review on this one after seeing the negativity on this place.
I've never experienced baos, at least not in this kind of modern format, so I don't really have anything to fall back and base a solid review on how bao's in this style are meant to be.
My fiance and I actually stumbled upon this place when we leaving after a dinner's night out at Kiku AYCE right next door, so we told ourselves we'll give it a try since it's something we've never ventured.
Upon entering, the place was completely empty. It was just me, my fiance, two staff members and a TV playing CP24. On first look, I thought the place was kept very clean, has good interior design and straight forward of where you gotta order your food. The one thing that did irk me a little is aside from the main menu right above the cashier, they've got specials written on this huge chalk board, that on first glance I thought was just for design. But there was actually a few other food options to be offered and kicked myself in the butt for not looking more carefully.
We both ordered two pork belly steamed baos and a bulgogi kimchi fries to share, or it might be called a poutine, I can't recall.
On first glance, the food looked really great! Presentation is what I expected of it since it looked relatively close to the menu picture above the cashier area, very Instagram worthy. On a personal level, I grew up never really eating pork so I have a bit of a sensitive pork tongue I guess you could say. The pork belly bao first hit me in the face with this really pungent pork flavour, though, don't hold this against the restaurant since it's not their fault, I just didn't expect the pork flavour to be that strong. For whatever reason it tastes that strongly, I will never know, but after two bites I was done with it. I did like the flavour of whatever sauce was inside, the fresh vegetables and the actual bao bread (?) itself. It was light with that perfect amount of sweetness, I actually wouldn't mind eating it on it's own!
The bulgogi kimchi fries were a bit of a disappointment though. The fries were great on their own as they held up their own crispiness and delicious flavour among the heavy hitters of the kimchi and bulgogi. What got me down about this dish was how the kimchi tasted a little old ... I know it's weird to say, but it's almost as if it was almost 'over' fermented I guess? Maybe not enough people order anything with kimchi so their using really old kimchi? I couldn't really say. The bulgogi was nothing mind blowing. It tastes like my homemade bulgogi when I had first self taught myself how to cook, that's what it reminded me of.
I really am willing to try It's a Bao Time another chance since I don't seem to know any other places like this in the Markham area as I am not as open to travelling downtown. I'm really looking forward to their Japanese karaage bao and their deep fried fish bao which also looked phenomenal!
I will most likely be giving an updated review on It's A Bao time in the near future.
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