“We wanted to serve the food we grew up eating and craving on a daily basis,” says Tim Lai, co-owner of Momo Baohaus, the slick new Taiwanese street food restaurant that’s quickly making its mark on the Greenside food scene. Opened together with his brother, Lawrence, Momo Baohaus serves many of the dishes that were inspired by their visits back to Taiwan. The resulting menu is a modern interpretation of these family favourites in the form of tapas, Taiwanese steamed buns or bao, bowls and sushi. We chatted with Tim to find out more.
How would you sum up Momo Baohaus?
We think our approach is best summed up as “modern Asian”. As well as authentic Taiwanese dishes, we do also draw inspiration from Korean, Japanese, and Chinese cooking, but we’ve paid special attention to being respectful to these cuisines and so we always try to keep the flavours in context. We try to keep our food authentic except for a few modern twists.
How did you come up with your menu?
When we initially designed our menu, we knew we wanted to do a few things and to do them really well – and we also had to fit the physical constraints of our kitchen. So we decided to limit our menu to buns, bowls and sushi rolls. We also included a few tapas dishes because an Asian meal isn’t complete without a few small plates to share between family and friends. Overall, we wanted to make the process of experiencing great Asian food less intimidating and more accessible.
Talk us through your bao – what are they and which ones should we try?
A bao is simply a steamed bun, and because it is steamed it is super fluffy. Our bao are based on a Taiwanese street food called gua bao, but we’ve introduced a few new tasty fillings. The Chairman Bao (pulled lamb, hoisin, crushed peanut and QP mayo) and the Colonel Bao (crispy fried chicken, pickled ginger and sriracha) are definitely two of our most popular.
What are your future plans?
We plan on expanding this first store by creating an outdoor dining space that will be great for summer. We also already have plans to expand the concept to other stores – and we’re always testing new items to keep things exciting.
010 900 4889
Words: Catherine Black | Images: Supplied
