Jason Knits

Take A Bao is situated in the middle of the food court at the Westfield Century City. I had been impatiently waiting for it to open for months. I love baozi 包子. I can be happy if that’s all there is in a meal. Steaming white bun filled with all kinds of goodies. Meat, veggies. Even sweet bean paste. Baskets and baskets of them. But I discovered a week ago that they weren’t doing baozi. Instead, they were doing guabao 割包.

You might have seen similar stuff like guabao. They use them for Peking Duck sometimes. I also love guabao when they are done right. The steamed bun can be opened to add fillings in the middle. Like a sandwich. Very popular in Taiwan. Usually stuffed with soy braised pork belly, pickled veggies, fresh cilantro and peanut powder. I am drooling just thinking about it.

Take A Bao didn’t serve the traditional guabao. They offered several Asian-fusion kind of combinations. I think you can also build your own with the stuffings they have. They are good. Just can’t compare to the original in my opinion.

The service that day was absolutely awful. I think they weren’t prepared to serve a crowd. The orders were out of order. The people in charge looked like they just zoned out and didn’t want to bother with customer service. They barely whispered your name when the food was ready, and it could sit there forever if you did not go up and get it. We watched people coming up behind us get their orders first, and had to inquire about it before they went to look for our order. We weren’t the only ones. A couple was waiting for their food at the same time as we were. They were still waiting by the time we finished eating.

OK, enough complaining. I found some positive reviews on Zagat. So, maybe they’ve finally established a system and is running the restaurant smoothly now. Don’t know if I will go back often though. I was really looking forward to having some good baozi!