Bao Dao is small but super cheery. We fell in love with Bao Dao a while ago when we walked past and saw a tops old auntie feeding noodles to her dog, an uber smiley Japanese Spitz or similar. Auntie dangled a long strand of noodle in the air and that hound could slurp it down whole a metre at a stretch. A lesser hound would try to wind the noodle onto his fork.
Baodao sticky rice with pork sauce - $6.60. A stiff mound of sticky rice with half a boiled egg on top, it tasted like the rice you get in steamed banana leaf parcels. Stodge with flavour. We remember having a similar dish in Lukang, Taiwan.
Boiled egg, simmer in soy, Asian herbs - $2.20. Classic tea smoked egg, can't go wrong.
Stewed tofu with soy, Asian herbs - $4.40. Fried cubes of tofu in a sweet soy broth, similar to agadashi tofu but not as crisp on the outside.
Tofu and mushroom sauce with noodles - $7.90. It's like a vegetarian take on Taiwanese pork mince, on rice noodles, the type of flat light noodle we encountered all over Taiwan. If that sounds like your thing you'll love it, we did. We added a splash of vinegar which changed the flavour to something resembling BBQ sauce.
Bao dao spicy beef noodle soup - $11. It's mildly spicy with just a little chili, which suits us fine on a stinky humid day. The broth is a winner, a little sweet and tasting of stewed beef. There's a few hunks of beef and those classic flat Taiwanese style noodles. There's a few variations of this soup on the menu, next time we'll try the one with pork dumplings. It's a great soup but our favourite Taiwanese beef soups in town (so far) are Sunflower Taiwanese Gourmet on Broadway and Taiwan Ganbei in Chinatown. If you have a favourite Taiwanese beef noodle soup in Sydney we'd love to know about it.
Braised pork belly bun with pickled mustard, corandier and crushed peanuts - $4.50. The pork belly is pretty special but the sugary peanut seasoning gives it that Asian sweet/savoury mashup that doesn't work for us. While we saw very few of these on our three week eating trip to Taiwan, the one we did have in Taipei was sensational with a perfect balance of flavours.
Golden chicken maryland meal - $13.90. Deep fried chicken with a crispy skin dusted with pepper. Served with some Japanese style rice, an eggy mashed potato, steamed greens, pickled veggies and tomato simmered with pork mince.
Bao Dao menu.
Bao Dao menu.
Bao Dao Taiwanese Kitchen is at 8/376 Victoria Ave, Chatswood. http://baodao.com.au/
that spicy noodle soup sounds perfect, there's a bao dao that just opened up in eastwood so will def have to head over and give it a try!
ReplyDeleteWe went to the one in Eastwood on the weekend, same menu but the resto is heaps bigger.
ReplyDeleteShawn,
DeleteIf you're back in Chatswood again, try Hu's Inn Taiwanese Izakaya-style food joint. Their noodle soups is superior compared to Bao Dao IMHO, especially the unique "Silly Noodle" in their menu. Their friend chicken is also very good along with other small-plate snacks that shall be eaten with beers. Talking about beers, they sell them at low price and come from many countries of origin - highly recommended for hot summer nights.
Japanese don't own short grain rice. Most of the North Asian region eat short grain rice.
ReplyDelete