The Plateau’s restaurant and sangria bar offers a selection of bao named after Asian cities on its menu: the Taiwan features pork belly, the Saigon is filled with tofu, and the Seoul is all about fried chicken.

This Chinatown standby has a pastry shop on one side and all manner of dim sum and Hong Kong style stuffed buns on the other. Check out their special roujiamo, called “the Mo’s Bun” with barbecue pork, and kimchi chicken or beef.

Pork belly, karaage, or crispy fried tofu are the bao stars of this Taiwanese fusion restaurant and bar across the street from McGill. With fresh homemade bubble tea upstairs in the daytime and cocktails downstairs in a cozy nighttime speakeasy, there’s no excuse to miss out. 

Situated in the downtown Renaissance hotel, here visitors can feast on bao stuffed with Peking duck, crispy chicken, or a braised pork filling featuring five-spice, sesame, peanuts, Thai basil, and green mustard cabbage.

This elegant restaurant offers roujiamo with tofu, and the option of adding on barbecued lamb. Mei is also one of the few places in town making jianbing, a crispy pancake stuffed with egg and crunchy dough bites, for a carb snack beyond compare. 

This Shaughnessy Village establishment (owned by the same dumpling mavens who own Sammi and Soupe Dumpling and Qing Hua Dumpling) serves up classic Shanghai-style pork belly bao alongside Beijing-style smoked meat, crispy garlic chicken, and teriyaki beef or mushrooms fillings. 

Softshell crab bao are on the menu at this Little Burgundy outpost of the Otto brand, just as creative and delicious as everything else on the menu. 

Stuffed with pork belly, fried chicken, tofu, tempeh, or just served plain, Satay Bros is a local favourite for bao of all kinds. 

Brossard’s Mai Tian calls their roujiamo a pork bread pie, one of several traditional Chinese breads on their menu. Check out their sesame-studded shao bing flatbreads featuring pork or beef with green onion and pan-fried leek dumplings, perfect with Northern-style thick noodles with soybean paste.