My family and I went to Bao House for dinner. There are 4 of us, so usually when we order Chinese food we get a rice dish or noodles and a couple of main dishes to split. (This is more of family style) Now we moved here from HI where there is a very large population of Chinese. So, the bar was kind of high going in. Which maybe was a little bit of a mistake. Anyhow this is what we ordered:
Appetizers:
1 order of the BBQ pork buns (3 buns in a serving)
1 order of beef and onion dumplings (8 dumplings. You can get these steamed or pan fried. We got them pan fried, plus it comes with a dipping sauce)
We were told that the dumplings can take up to 15 min to make/come out. So essentially to order first to be able to get them in a timely manner with the rest of your food.
The apps were ok. I myself liked the pork buns. They came out hot and fresh. The buns were soft and filled with a good amount of char siu pork. The beef and onion dumplings were so-so. They could've been fried a bit longer to get a better crunchy bottom. Otherwise they also came out hot and quick.
Now the entrees we ordered were kinda hit and miss. Each one comes with your choice of soup of the day and rice. You can get their version of fried rice for an additional $1. We got 3 entrees, of which 2 had hot & sour soup plus steamed white rice. And the other one had egg drop soup and fried rice. The fried rice is essentially brown colored rice - that's it. No veggies, no chicken, seafood, nothing. It's just a different color from soy sauce? I'm not sure. But that's the extent of it on the entree. The one on the menu to order separately is different.
The entrees we got were:
Mapo tofu (not spicy)
Kung pao chicken
Sizzling black pepper beef
Mapo tofu: I'll be honest, yes it wasn't spicy cause that's what it said it would be on the menu. I also make this at home. But I was uh slightly disappointed. Don't get me wrong it came out pretty quick and it was temperature hot. But it looked pretty bland. Like the dish looked "beige". So needless to say I was like wait what? It was fairly bland and maybe that was my fault cause we asked for it to be not spicy. I can't eat too spicy and neither can my younger son. But maybe we should have ordered it spicy? It was also pretty runny like soup, which back in Hawaii it was never like that when we'd order it. It was a dish you could pour over your rice and mix it up, then eat together.
The Kung Pao chicken from what I could tell was the best tasting dish out of all of the entrees we ordered. Because everyone was eating it, but I couldn't eat it as it had peanuts in it. (I'm allergic. My son said that he must've missed that in the description of the dish or picture Because he probably wouldn't have ordered it as he said it was odd having peanuts crunch while also eating the chicken. Also I can't eat them) But again that according to everyone was the only entree that was good.
Lastly was the sizzling black pepper beef. My husband ordered this and he said the celery, onion and bell peppers weren't cooked all the way. Plus he said the beef while looked peppery wasn't peppery enough for him. LOL But that's neither here nor there. He likes a lot of pepper. He said it made him sad because the dish came out temperature hot and pretty quick, but just didn't have any flavor. He said if it just had more flavor it would've been better, and spicy. He had to add chili crunch/oil.
Overall the service was good. The server was good, the food came out fairly quick plus temperature hot. But it just wasn't full of flavor. So for what we paid it just wasn't it. I was deeply disappointed because we spent $82 with soft drinks. Only to have bland, temperature hot Chinese food. I really had high expectations/hopes for this place. But this will be the first and last time we eat there. I'd have asked for my money back but the server was good.
Unfortunately there is only 1 good Asian restaurant in town. I don't know if there are any good Chinese restaurants in town. read more