Diner’s Diary | Hong Kong chef May Chow opens new Little Bao restaurant with more menu items and a much bigger space
Chow, who won a best Asia female chef award last year, has added several tasty new items to the Causeway Bay branch’s menu including fried chicken, shrimp tacos and seaweed poppers
Self-taught Hong Kong chef May Chow made a name for herself in 2013 when she opened Little Bao, a tiny restaurant known for its “Chinese burgers”: halved steam buns with funky, flavourful fillings.
The restaurant on Staunton Street in Central district’s SoHo area quickly became popular for its pork belly bao and desserts of either green tea or salted caramel ice cream sandwiched between deep-fried buns. There are constant queues outside the small space, into which only 20 diners can squeeze at a time.
Chow’s constant experimentation with new ways of honouring traditional Chinese flavours and techniques saw her named Best Female Chef 2017 by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants.
She opened a funky take on a Chinese diner, Happy Paradise, in SoHo in 2017. And now Little Bao has expanded, with a new branch in Fashion Walk, in the busy Causeway Bay shopping district, that will officially open on September 26.
Called Little Bao Diner, the bright and airy space – just across from Victoria Park – is quite a contrast to the small, cramped original in SoHo, sitting almost five times as many people. The vibe here is relaxed – Chow welcomes families, and dog owners, to come and hang out, and there is a no-reservations policy.
The menu is bigger too – as well as the original items from Little Bao in Central, there are new dishes that are good for sharing which we tried at a recent media tasting.
