I think you're sauceome.

My brother was watching me draw this thing, and he asked which bao was the best bao. I have, unfortunately, not had the opportunity to try all of the delicious buns on this page, but I immediately pointed at the bánh bao anyway. In Chicago, you can get them at Ba Le and at Nhu Lan, and they are a delicious pocket of awesomeness, packed with a filling of ground pork and vegetables and spices, slices of Chinese honey sausage, and a hard boiled quail egg. It’s a soft warm spicy hug that you can eat.

If the honey sausage and quail egg are too weird for you (and they’re not for everyone), Chicago’s Chiu Quon bakery makes some incredibly delicious Chinese baozi, with a bunch of different fillings to choose from.

When Niles and I were in Japan a few years ago, I was intensely jealous that you could get fresh piping hot nikuman at every convenience store. Even the ones at the 7-11 were delicious!

Anyway, that’s enough of bao for now. I promise next week I’ll have something else to write about.

In the meantime, did you know that there are new League of Courteous Cyclist shirts and hoodies in my store? Also there’s a new Twin Peaksy print, which is damn fine.