Bao down

For better or worse, dessert and Chinese food are not two concepts that are readily married in the mind. “Dessert,” as we know it, tends to conjure up images of apple pies, chocolate cakes, a mousse here and a tart there. “Chinese food,” on the other hand, brings to mind thoughts of black bean sauce, hanging poultry and dumplings filled with pork and seafood. But in every culture and cuisine, there is something sweet to be had. What in the world were the Chinese eating to satisfy their national sweet tooth? And was it better than what we, eaters of apple pie, were having for dessert?

I thought I might find that answer on Stockton Boulevard, home to a plethora of Asian shops and restaurants. Rather than going to a Chinese restaurant and ordering several desserts, which might strike some as lunacy, I chose the less conspicuous method of visiting a couple of Chinese bakeries.

First stop: J&D Bakery, a specialist in “Hong Kong Style bao, gourmet coffee & tea, fruit basket cakes, and wedding cakes.” There’s nothing like being a complete ignoramus in a sweet shop. It is as if you had just landed from another planet, and you are saying, “Tell us about that round object.” The man behind the counter was graciously patient in helping me assemble my bakery box, which I filled with nearly one of everything: a pork and nut cookie, sticky rice cookies, egg custard, fried sticky rice with pork filling, a walnut cookie, a red bean cake and a cake roll with butter cream.

My second stop was TNT Bakery, a much less friendly experience. The woman behind the counter was not used to aliens from other planets. Rather than helping me understand what various items were, or helping me at all, I was ignored for five minutes while she swept the floor. When she figured out that I was not going anywhere, she said, “You want something now?” I nodded.

I pointed to one individually wrapped baked good and asked, “What’s that?”

“You won’t like it,” she said, not looking me in the eye.

When I pressed her, she told me it had “black egg” in it, but wouldn’t tell me anything more. I got an assortment as quickly as I could and fled, not fully knowing what I had purchased.

From what I can tell, Chinese bakery treats belong to one of three categories: a coupling of the sweet and savory, a triumph of the intensely sweet, and a prevalence of, you guessed it, sweet bean cake. Of the three, the sweet and savory are the best, simply because they are not so tooth-achingly sweet. From J&D, a delicious egg-shaped ball of rice-flour dough was filled with minced pork, mushrooms and onions, and then deep-fried to a golden brown. This was the clear winner of the box, with its combination of savory meat, sweet rice and good fry flavor. A flat pork and nut cookie, with a chewy consistency and a vague chili paste taste, was most unusual. It was the kind of cookie you keep eating, only because you’re not sure if you like it. The taste is unfamiliar, but not necessarily unpleasant. In the end, you’re not sure what you ate or if you’ll ever eat it again. TNT had these cookies, too, but I ignored the cookies and went for the pork biscuit, which was basically a miniature potpie. The pork filling was salty and peppery, with just enough wetness and flavor to mimic gravy residue.

Of the intensely sweet morsels, there were too many to choose. The cookies with sweet/sticky rice were the most sweet, but the least interesting. The almond cookies were predictably buttery, while the “walnut cookies” were simply sugar cookies with a walnut at the center. The texture of the cookies varied from flaky to crumbly, with every bite resulting in cookie parts flying every which way. TNT did a better job of varying the sweetness with sesame seeds, coconut or almond flavoring, while J&D seemed to go for the pure sugar fix.

The sweet bean cakes were surprisingly good. Some had the grainy consistency of potato, while others were smoother. The red bean cakes had a more intense flavor, while the yellow bean cakes seemed less complex.

Will there come a day when I favor sweet bean paste over chocolate? Probably not. But will it stop me from searching for more Chinese desserts to try? Heck no. There are chocolate ginger lychees, deep-fried watermelon and sweet marinated lotus roots to be had. Onward.