Char siu bao are the ultimate to-go snack. The baked variety, with chopped barbecue pork stuffed into a fluffy wheat bun, is ideal for wandering around San Francisco’s Chinatown during Lunar New Year festivities that begin this week.
Char siu bao are not a traditional New Year food, but the neighborhood is full of bakeries and to-go dim sum spots that make both the steamed and baked variety. (many are crowded around the same two blocks of Stockton Street.) However, not all char siu bao are created equal, and Chronicle staff set out to find our favorite baked pork buns on a recent rainy morning as Chinatown was gearing up for the Year of the Horse.
The Cantonese specialty starts with the char siu itself, succulent pork with origins in the Zhou dynasty, when the meat was spit-roasted over a fire. For modern-day bao, cooks chop the meat and stir it into a mixture of hoisin, oyster sauce and other ingredients, often thickening the sauce with corn starch. Steamed pork buns feature an airy, white bao while the baked ones are in a sweeter, glazed dough…