Name the cafe a pivot, a side-hustle or a brand new model. The Centretown eatery has launched spectacular new breakfast and lunch menus.
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Gongfu Bao
365 Financial institution St., 343-341-0999, gongfu.ca
Open: Wednesday to Saturday 9 a.m. to three p.m. (cafe), 4 to 10 p.m. (bao bar), closed Sunday to Tuesday
Costs: breakfast and lunch objects $4 to $22, dinner objects $5 to $20.50
Entry: ramp to entrance door
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The “bao bros” want to relax.
This suggestion is for individuals who in latest months went to the Centretown eatery Gongfu Bao for lunch, however with a chip of entitlement on their shoulders.
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The bros, as Gongfu Bao’s chef-owner Tarek Hassan succinctly nicknamed them, demanded handcrafted Chinese language steamed buns with savoury fillings — specialties which have put the “bao” in Gongfu Bao since 2013, when Hassan began promoting them from a meals cart beside Confederation Park.
After Hassan’s Financial institution Avenue cozy store opened in 2018, it constructed a gentle following of bros and non-bros who craved contemporary, fluffy buns full of the toothsome brisket, fried rooster or no matter particular surprises Hassan may dream up.
However, just a few months in the past, Hassan markedly rejigged his enterprise. To the dismay of some bros, Gongfu Bao now serves buns solely at dinner, beginning at 4 p.m. On these days, from 9 a.m. to three p.m., it opens as a restaurant. Extra particularly, it’s one thing akin to the form of Hong Kong-style dinner generally known as a cha chaan teng in Cantonese.
However again to the bros. They got here to Gongfu earlier than 4 p.m. and turn into irate as a result of no buns have been available. Some left one-star opinions on-line after they felt disadvantaged, Hassan advised me.
They don’t know what they missed. Having sampled from Gongfu’s new breakfast/lunch menu just a few occasions, I’m much more excited by its concise record of choices than I’m by the trusty buns. The bros should recover from themselves and check out Hassan’s very good daytime objects.
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I’m already obsessive about Hassan’s corned beef and egg bolobao ($12). This dreamy sandwich stars a skinny slab of house-made, crisped, however tender corned beef, markedly higher than, however not unrelated to the tinned product of final resort. It’s layered with egg, tomato and chili crisp, all framed by a puffy milk bun that has a barely candy cookie high. That baked merchandise is a deal with all its personal ($6), accessible together with different made-daily, bread-y treats to be loved on website or to go. The total sandwich creation, an elevated riff on not one, however two Hong Kong snacks, is the form of factor that might go viral, cronut-style, if it have been made in Brooklyn or San Francisco.
Very totally different, but in addition very spectacular was the HK French toast ($10), a custard-filled slab of milk bread, dipped in egg after which fried after which served with salted butter and maple syrup. Thankfully for any bao lovers studying this, this candy breakfast merchandise can also be accessible for dessert within the evenings.
At lunch, I’ve gone to Gongfu for the pork chop bun ($16), which starred a brined, breaded and fried pork chop topped with pickled shallots and lettuce on a flax oatmilk bun. That, plus a aspect of vegan mushroom congee ($4), a gingery, comforting rice porridge, left me heat and content material for the remainder of the day.
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I’ve lingered at Gongfu, utilizing its free wi-fi and nursing huge, foamy cups of creamy, Hong Kong-style milk tea ($5) or yuenyeung ($5), a 50/50 mix of espresso and milk tea that you just should strive since you don’t know what you’re lacking, bro.
(For comparability’s sake, I must strive the milk tea served at Cafe Orient in Chinatown. Hassan, a real devotee of Cantonese and Hong Kong delicacies, particularly after his go to there in 2017, names that cafe as a peer of types.)
I’ve introduced residence bakeshop treats from Gongfu, together with egg tarts ($6), coconut buns ($6), plus beef and vegan hotdog buns ($6). You could find related baked items at some Asian grocery shops in Ottawa, though Gongfu’s objects, made every morning by co-owner and head baker Emily Wooden, are small-batch wonders. My telephone wants an app or an alert to indicate me precisely when Wooden’s baked items have emerged heat from the Gongfu oven at their peak for buyer enjoyment.
It’s additionally been arduous for me to depart Gongfu and not using a chocolate chunk brown butter cookie or three ($3, $8 for 3) as a result of they’re irresistible.
Name the cafe what you’ll: a pivot, a side-hustle or a brand new model. Hassan advised me he made the change for 2 causes — to fulfill himself creatively and, maybe extra importantly, to maintain his standard, however profit-strapped enterprise going.
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Hassan advised me that Gongfu needed to hunker down earlier than this fall, decreasing its opening hours to outlive. He discovered that opening extra days solely unfold out his bao enterprise and didn’t enhance it.
Hassan candidly wrote on Gongfu’s social media final month: “Please be form (and beneficiant in case you can afford it) to your native small companies. Many people could seem like OK, however are perpetually on the brink and below insufferable pressures.
“For those who like the truth that we’re open Wednesdays and have added extra hours, present some love. We’d like it proper now greater than you would possibly assume!”
The cafe is supposed to draw new clients or lure bao followers to strive one thing new, and so they need to.
Whereas Gongfu’s namesake buns are nonetheless best-in-Ottawa treats, the cafe objects deserve their very own following that’s at the least as enthusiastic and constant.
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