Hello Panda
Chinese Bao and
Lanterns Collide
Queens Night Market sensation C Bao Asian Buns comes to Hello Panda Festival C Bao Asian Buns
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I JANUARY 2020 49
BY JOE DISTEFANO
As the Culinary King of Queens, I’m so very
fortunate to live in the most diverse and delicious
destination in all of New York City. Really I’m not
royalty though, I’m an ambassador, and a hungry
one at that. Today, we return to China to talk about
C Bao Asian Buns, a Queens-based business that
specializes in one of my favorite sandwiches, Chinese
bao. They’re just one of 60 food vendors curated by
the World’s Fare at the Hello Panda Festival, which
kicked off at Citi Field last weekend and runs until
January 26th.
For a long, long time the only pork buns I
knew were the char siu bao found at Chinese
bakeries in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The first
time that I encountered a fluffy hinged bao
bun was at a Peking duck restaurant. Until David
Chang came on the scene in the 1990s offering his
take on Taiwanese gua bao, or pork belly sandwiches
I didn’t think of the bao outside the context of Peking
duck. Unlike the tasty but rather one note char siu bao
found in Chinese bakeries these little marvels were
packed with thick slabs of wobbly slow cooked pork
belly, pickled mustard greens, and sweetened peanuts
creating a symphony of flavor. At about the same time
roast duck buns, notably the famed “duck a buck” as
prepared at Corner 28 in downtown Flushing’s bustling
Chinatown, started to become a popular street food.
On a cold Tuesday afternoon, I stopped by C Bao’s
Times Square outpost and tried both the duck and pork
belly buns. I’d had them once before and thought they
were pretty good, but frankly I don’t like to wait on lines,
so I hadn’t tasted either in years. Both remain among
the best bao I’ve ever had in New York City. Each of
the fluffy buns was slightly larger than my fist. The
pillowy dough of the gua bao yielded to tender slabs
of pork belly whose richness was perfectly offset by
the pickled greens and peanuts. The duck version
was filled with hefty slices, which somehow retained
their crisp skin even in the cold Times Square air. I’m
willing to bet that the Korean beef, chicken teriyaki, and
tofu bao are just as good but I stuck to the classics.
“C is for Chinese and C is also the initial of my
husband’s first name,” says Annie Ye who started C
Bao Asian Buns with her husband Chun Chung Ip in
2013. The couple, who hail from Wenzhou, China, and
now live in Fresh Meadows, developed the recipes for
the bao themselves. Thanks to their delicious buns, C
Bao quickly became a hit at some of New York City’s
most popular food markets, including Smorgasburg,
Queens Night Market and Flushing Night Out.
“We thought bao would be a healthy meal for
customers,” says Yen adding the top seller after almost
10 years in business remains the hefty Peking duck
bun. “They love our food, especially the duck,” Yen
says with a laugh of her four children.
Since they’re open until 11 p.m. you could check
out C Bao’s sandwiches in the dazzling lights of
Times Square, but why not enjoy these Chinese
treats by the lights of the handcrafted lanterns at
North America’s largest Chinese lantern festival. I
know I’ll be there!
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