BAO

Erchen Chang, Shing Tat Chung and Wai Ting Chung · BAO

We like to hide a few of our favourite dishes in the sides section of the menu. They’re the kind of thing you order without thinking about it too much, and then when it comes it’s a nice surprise. Tucked away on the side menu at BAO Fitz is a dish inspired by St. JOHN’s classic roast bone marrow on toast with parsley salad. It brings back memories of our student years, when we would eat at the legendary bar. Here we place the bone marrow on torched, dressed rice, which we match with the umami flavour of aged white soy sauce and balance with fermented daikon and soy-cured egg yolk. The daikon gives the dish the acidity it needs similar to the freshness of the parsley salad at St. JOHN. When our BAO OG Alice’s mum came to visit us from Taiwan, she said our bone marrow rice tasted like an upgraded version of Lu Rou Fan, which brought a tear to my eye. I cannot think of a better compliment. The daikon and bone marrow need to be prepared in advance of making this dish.