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Rebecca Happy here with Ottawa BuzzTV and today we're gonna be speaking with Tarek Hassan who is about to
launch one of the Ottawa food carts hitting the streets of Ottawa in a little while this summer called Gongfu Bao
and i'll
so good afternoon Tarek
hi, how ya doing Rebecca?
to tell us a little bit about what it is you've go
cooking up for us right now
right now in the kitchen or whats coming to the cart?
he he he he
Both
uh... I'm working on another batch
uh...my maple birch ch cheshir bao
chechir bao is
it's probably the most classic of bao steam buns
uh... so uh...
uh... and
making up a batch for my inlaws
actually. ah nice.
yeah so at the cart this spring the bao
or Asian steam buns
uh... an its a
pretty classic street food. It's just not
familiar street food around these parts but uh...
people have been serving out
uh...bao
with food carts and street stalls for a couple thousand years no in Asia and they'r still going strong.
you can still find sticky buns at
at Asian night
markets all over east asia
uh... ya so I wanted to do something classic and taking a different
approach to the classic
what exactly goes into uh... a Bao steam bun?
It's a soft yeasted dough
uh... that's uh... filled with savory fillings and I'll go over a couple of different
examples of fillings
uh... and then it's steamed
uh... and from both the yeast and other leaveners in the dough and the action of
the steam
uh... you get
a dough thats
a different texture than any other bread you can eat
uh... that's really pillowy soft cloud like
dough
fillings I'm going to be showcasing
the bounty of beautiful things available locally and sustainably to us here in
OTtawa .I've got very strong ties with
a lot of local producers
and farmers
I'll be mixing it up throughout the summer and going with the seasons and doing
smaller batches of different fillings
one staple for sure is going to be the maple charshu bao
good local maple syrup uh... chinese barbecued pork
uh... with the maple replacing the honey that's that's
uh... traditional to that recipe
uh...
ya
its sweet smokey and
funky and really good
that was my timer . I gotta go and check on my dough. sorry.I'll be right back
gonfu is
is a chinese term uh referring to
uh...
uh... a skill or an accomplishment that's acquired through effort
repetition and practice
and i think a close analogue to is artisanal here
well not an analogue but
what I'm
using the term to refer to
is food that's
this tell you something where you follow a recipe and combines some ingredients and
there you have it. Something
uh... that that takes m
send patience and dedication to
to acquired at the touch
to to be able to do it
a specific way
uh...
another part of what intrigued me and and moved me to
bao
uh... because um... it's it's a tricky dough to work with the and the technique
for shaping the traditional pleated
uh... buns which
uh... which was something of a pursuit for me
took a lot of practice and study and and and and uh...
and in time I got the hang of it
and when this ottawa street food thing came about. It was like I could do sweet buns
who was your teacher initially when you wanted when you first did the bao
well uh... it was quite a journey. I started off just cocky
as many chefs tend to be. thinking
hey I could do this and I tried it and failed miserably
I read books. I watched videos and
looked at pictures and
and and got you know
got close to it from different angles but never really got it
but wasn't til a
friend of mine married a
Tibetan ex monk
uh... and
when he came to canada
the first thing we did when e hung out was
like when I met him was we made dumplings togehter
and uh...
he had the pleaking technique for shaping the dumplings or shaping steam
buns
uh... down to a tee because
uh... it's staple food in Tibet like momos is something that he's been making
since he was a little
child
uh... so it was second nature to him
and so I practiced with him and watched him and that's what gave me that
final
touch that I was missing to get it
is it a wheat flour base
or it's made with other kinds of flour
it's wheat
ok
it's what flour. It is also leavened but uses baking soda baking powder for leavening as well
so there are several stages of leavening that happen
uh...
on top of it there is the
the steaming as well which
in itself will leaven the dough
I often try to leave sort of
the meaning behind
aesthetic nuances
up to people to figure out but I 'll let you in on this
the logo for Gongfu is yellow with like a
white stripe across some of the characters. he style of it is a
play on the
uh...
yellow Bruce Lee jump suit with the with the black stripes
uh... it's a yello logo on it and uh... and there is
there is gonna be a bright yellow canope on top
uh...
uh... the most characterful thing about the cart will be the stacks of steamer
bamboo steamer baskets
it was interesting cause initially I was thinking
is that
sticking to the bamboo baskets
i really want to do it because aesthetically walking up to a cart
that has stacks of bamboo baskets I felt that would be
an aesthetically pleasing experience
uh...
and thought that I was going to be compromising
by not going with like
a metal drawer
or kind of industrial steamer set up
but when they explore both options uh...
i realized that the traditional bamboo steamer is
incredibly practical in many ways. It works out
better not just aesthetically but
process wise and hygienically and
several other factors the steamers were great
uh... the only challenge for me was
uh... fitting that steamer set up to
uh...the uh
the Ottawa food cart
uh...
equipment and options
that are available
to
uh... well
from a western
street food
uh... equipment supplier manufacturer uh... jim
I figured out how to like bridge the two it's good
when is your expected time of opening?
are you gonna be opening in the middle of may or is it late
it's not likely to be the middle of may
im still waiting on my cart being being built as we speak
uh...
and uh...
and hoping third or fourth
week of may i'll have my cart
cross your fingers with me
go to the website and help me get my cart.
its great
so it's great it's it's really neat to be getting
not just moral and media support
for a cool idea. People are actually putting money up front
and saying i want gongfu bao. I want steam buns. here's my money
it is really cool
so what the crowd funding is is this
essentially
people make contributions towards a project or a business idea
and they get perks and rewards in return
and so the way i designed my reward system
it's at equivalent value
uh... to your contribution so
what people are essentially doing they are
they are pre buying
the goods and services I will be providing at the gongfu bao cart
once it's launched
uh... wo I think its a win win situation
its like a pre sale. ya exactly
and so if someone sees the pictures on my website and reads about bao or like I love bao
or I've never tried this before I'd like to try it
uh...
thank you. you are already making a decision there once this opens I want to go there and eat
so
by like
putting
making that investment
uh... sc
sort of
upfront it enables me to start up this business
and there's some really cool exclusive
uh... perks and rewards that you wouldn't be able to get if you were to just wait
i'm gonna be at Elgin
just south of slater uh...
the west entrance to confederation park
you are gonna be in the middle of all the festivals all summer
pretty well . ya its gonna be fun. and when the festivals arnt going on
its a great spot for a picnic
going to say good bye. Thank you very much for speaking with us today
thank you so much rebecca happy
looking forward to trying out your bao buns
thank you gongfu bao ottawa food cart. Thanks a lot rebecca happy