Splitting the Spoils at Bao Dim Sum House - Los Angeles

When I say I'm an only child, people automatically assume that I don't share. I wish people wouldn't be so eager to jump to conclusions or so quick to judge. I share things I don't like all the time.

I can share bad food with anyone, anywhere, it's the good food I have trouble with. And if, like me, you have yet to learn to share good food then dim sum is not the meal for you.

Sharing the Pork and Shrimp Shumai wasn't so hard though. I'm usually pretty indifferent because they tend to be too dense and pork-heavy, but these open-face dumplings have a good pork-to-shrimp ratio, which lightens it up a bit. Still, I'm happy to let someone else have the other two. 

The Crystal Shrimp Dumplings are a bit harder to split. My all-time favorite hargow have a huge, perfectly chewy, crystal-clear wrapper with a delicious ball of shrimp inside. 

Sharing the shrimp was hard enough, but sharing the Juicy Pork Dumplings gave me anaphylaxis. These little flavor-bombs may not have 18 folds, but the soup is so savory it's almost sweet, and the flavor is fuller than anything Din Tai Fung ever made.

When you're not into sharing, dim sum really forces your hand. Why else would so many things come in threes? Good thing I was full by the time we got the Bao Milk Bun or there might have been a cat-fight for the last of these soft, sweetly-crusted rolls filled with an even sweeter condensed milk.

I struggled with the milk buns, but I gave away the Spicy Shrimp Dumplings readily. These huge balls of slightly spicy shrimp tastes like someone from Szechuan married a Cajun cook, but they weren't exactly changing my life.

I would have shared every Tofu Skin Roll with Shrimp and Chicken with anything that had a mouth. Far as tofu skin rolls go, this one just didn't have a whole lot of flavor. It wasn't bad but I've had better.

I think every ounce of flavor the tofu skin rolls lacked went straight to the Wild Crab and Shrimp Dumplings. One bite of this savory seafood sack in a chewy crystal wrapper, and there was no way I was sharing a single bite of these chunks of juicy shrimp and succulent shreds of fresh-caught crab. I'll never bite the hand that feeds me, but I will stab the hand that tries to take my dumpling.

I don't get who, in a country where everyone is an only child, came up with the idea of a meal everyone has to share. At least Bao makes it a littler easier. The price may be twice what you'd normally pay, but each item is about 4 times the size. I may not like to share my dim sum, but it's not so hard to share my dim sum on steroids. And if it's dim sum at Bao I'm sharing, I'll share with just about anyone if it means I get to go to Bao.