American Bao Bar

Love the concept, but the reviews here won’t help you find the pop-​up. We showed up at the BBQ place on tuesday lunch but it ain’t happening any more there. So confusing. No number to call. Website looks like it’s on hold? On the plus side, we found our way to Yamo.

This is my favorite pop up of all of the ones I’ve been to (and in SF, there’s A LOT!). I didn’t expect much, but man, $ 37 for a multi course menu, I haven’t been so satisfied and going MMmm with every bite for a long time.
I recommend this to my friends a lot. It’s so worth the money and it’s really tasty. We had plenty of food, long string beans that were just the right about of spice, coconut curry xiao long baos which were surprisingly really good!!, some baos and gosh, I can’t remember if it was pork or chicken at the end. We were stuffed at the end and there was still dessert.
I would definitely go again!

We checked out the Tuesday night pop-​up at Southpaw. Jean Y. gave more than enough deets in her review and I’m going to pretty much agree with her.
I was eagerly anticipating (and drooling) over the menu, but we were pretty disappointed with the execution. For me, the real bummers were the Fried rice with quail egg (a gelatinous flavorless mess) and the Plantain wrapped chicken (also left us wondering why they were forgoing any seasoning). The bao bun flavors (I swoon over bao buns) didn’t quite work as well. btw– If you’re looking for some delicious bao buns and happen to be in Philly hit up Iron Chef Garces’ Chifa (his pork belly bao buns are to die for).
I love trying new places, so I was thrilled to check this place out, but the food just didn’t do it for us.

This is a little late but I went to one of the ABB pop ups at Nombe in March. Where to begin?
I was extremely excited for this meal but in the end, thoroughly disappointed. I didn’t think the food lived up to the hype and the worst part was the wait. Holy crap. I work in the food industry (and especially with pop ups) so I tried to be patient and understanding; I know that shit happens in the kitchen. That said, I can only begin to imagine what horrible kitchen accident derailed service (Someone chopped off a finger? The ingredients all simultaneously spoiled?) but wow, this was excessive. I don’t know what the hell was up with the staff but we waited 45 minutes for A GLASS OF WINE. And just that. Appalling.
That doesn’t even include the food. After a long day of work, all I wanted was a meal and what I got was a saga. Of the multi-​course menu, after an hour and a half of sitting there, we finally got course two. Unbelievable.
Finally, service somehow sped up a little but not much, rounding us out to a 3.5 hours. meal… and not the kind you want to sit there for 3.5 hours to enjoy. I can’t even begin to talk about the food because the wait was sooo bad and sooo long that we were starving by the time it arrived. What I do remember in my dazed cloud of anger and impatience was that the food was decent but nothing spectacular. Nothing wowed me and after that long of a wait, I needed to be wowed.
The only reason I’m giving this whole ordeal 3 stars was because the staff very graciously recognized the problem and didn’t charge us for the whole meal. We were still pretty upset with the price but I really appreciate what they did. Who knows what happened in that kitchen that night but whatever it was, it sure as hell has turned me away from another ABB pop up in the future.

Oh my god this place packs a punch. Big, bold flavors which happened to resonate perfectly with my palate. For under $ 40 you get an amazing 6 course prix fix menu which is almost too much to tackle because everything they brought out was delicious. The red curry dumplings are out of this world delicious. I can’t say I’ve ever had anything like them. The bao (steam buns) following were so yummy and filled with delicious ingredients like cumin lamb and 5 spiced pork. Following their namesake, they brought out the most tasty Malaysian bouillabaisse of shrimp, pineapple, and coconut. Just a perfect little shot to carry you over to the crispy fried rice with quail egg and spring vegetables. I happened to love the texture juxtaposition of the crispy rice and oozing egg on top. Despite being incredibly full at this point I still managed to try their delicious succulent chicken wrapped in plantain and somehow finish a decent share of the amazing ice cream sandwiches for dessert (five spice caramel ice cream!). There was so much amazing food brought to the table, it is obvious that the diners are getting a feast for a hell of a steal at this time. So I highly recommend going now, don’t wait, because this model seems doubtful to last for long. I would have paid double the price for such a lengthy, delicious evening of flavor joy.

It really does live up to its hype.
I booked a reservation for my little brother’s birthday dinner. He found American Bao Bar on SOSH and it looked amazing. Of course I managed to mess up the reservations and booked at the wrong location, luckily the hostess was incredibly nice and checked for cancellations (and yay, there was one) so we were in!
I loved their red curry chicken XLB soup dumplings: they were the perfect tenderness with a hint of lemongrass. Their buns are also amazing, my favorite being the lamb belly.
It was also the perfevt amount of food, so no complaints from me. I actually wasn’t looking forward to dessert since savory was so delish, but the dessert was awesome, two mini ice cream sandwich, one with a chocolate cookie and 5-​spice ice cream and the other with an oatmeal cookie and a lemon ice cream.
I’ll definitely be back and will have to make sure I make my reservation at the correct place next time.

American Bao Bar is a pop-​up that is currently at Nombe on Mondays and Southpaw BBQ on Tuesdays. Reservations can be made by emailing
.
They currently serve a $ 37 multi-​course tasting menu. The courses I had are described below:
1) «Hot buns on a plate» (cumin lamb belly, crispy 5-​spice smoked pork, grilled chili paneer)
These all resembled gua bao (a type of traditional Taiwanese pork bun) in form factor, with a thick slice of the main ingredient in a Pacman-​shaped white bun. The smoked pork was by far the best. The paneer tasted fairly bland.
2) Red curry chicken XLB soup dumplings
So disappointing! The pictures on the 7×7 article about American Bao Bar (
) looked like legitimate XLB, but the XLB we got were thick, doughy, and triangular. They lacked the thin wrappers with many folds that I expect of XLB and reminded me more of Turkish manti than XLB.
3) Malaysian bouillabaisse with shrimp, pineapple, coconut
The warm shot of Malaysian bouillabaisse was rich in flavor and yummy. Too bad there was only one shot!
4) «Fried rice,» quail egg, spring vegetables
Served as a mound of slightly crispy rice, with a hole on top where the runny quail egg was poured in. I think I would have liked this better if there was a little more something in the rice.
5) Plantain-​wrapped chicken, banana sambal
The chicken was really moist and tender, but unfortunately for me, I hate the flavor of banana.
6) Wok-​kissed garlicky greens
The toasted garlic chips were delicious, and the greens were perfectly cooked.
7) Ice cream sandwiches by Batter Bakery
Two bite-​sized sandwiches – lime on an oatmeal cookie and some combination of five-​spice, caramel, and chocolate. The five-​spice was overwhelming, and I left most of it untouched.
American Bao Bar benefited greatly from Nombe’s full sake list and sake sommelier. The bottle of sake the sommelier recommended was one of the highlights of the meal. (If you check out American Bao Bar on a Tuesday, you will have different alcohol options.)
The staff were all nice, but a few people came off as inexperienced. They did not introduce the courses they brought to the table. We were told at the beginning of the meal that there was an optional special which contained an-​ingredient-​that-​shall-​not-​be-​named and that we would be given more details later. However, nobody actually gave us more details. We asked about the special at the end of the meal. Beef + xxxx xxxx dumplings after dessert seemed somewhat anti-​climactic, but if I’d been asked earlier, I would have tried them.
I was disappointed that there were not more bao in the meal, and I was disappointed by the XLB. The menu was interesting, but I would rather have eaten 4 trays of XLB at Din Tai Fung for the same price, if only I lived within 50 miles of a Din Tai Fung. I guess I’ll continue to get my bao fix in the Outer Sunset.