Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie

Chinese-ish Since 2010

3.5 of 5

Bao Bei says it has been serving very good Chinese-ish food since 2010. That suffix is the most honest word on any menu in Vancouver. The brasserie at 163 Keefer Street, on the edge of historic Chinatown, borrows from Taiwan and Shanghai, then reaches wherever else it likes. Purists may grumble. Purists also tend to eat badly, and they rarely have this much fun doing it.

Chef Joël Watanabe, who also runs the kitchen at Kissa Tanto a few blocks away, cooks here with obvious mischief. The Kick Ass House Fried Rice is the dish people name first, with prawns, bitter melon, masala-preserved mushrooms and papadam, a list that crosses three borders before the rice reaches the table. Add the mantou buns with braised pork, hoisin, pickled ginger and miso-serrano aioli, the soy honey crispy chicken thighs and the Taiwanese cauliflower. Leave room for the brown butter mochi cake. The plates are small and built for sharing, so order in waves.

The cocktails are inventive and the wine list leans toward natural bottles, which suits food this restless. Michelin recommends it. Locals just call it the place for fried rice and a drink. Take a bar stool midweek and resist the urge to ask whether something is authentic. Authentic to whom, exactly? The cooks know precisely what they are doing.

Order this: Kick Ass House Fried Rice, Mantou buns with braised pork, Soy honey crispy chicken thighs, Brown butter mochi cake
The damage: $$$
Go: A weeknight, at the bar
Find it: 163 Keefer St, Vancouver, BC V6A 1X3