UPDATE ALERT: It seems Bao Wow has closed down.

Making the transition from Food Truck to the center stage of City Walk, Bao Wow has definitely made all the right moves. This L Shaped venue occupys a corner of one of the residential blocks of City Walk and thankfully has a few of its own allocated underground parking spots. You’ll end up going on a bit of a journey to get to it thanks to the mysterious ways of this city’s road design, but the food is definitely worth doing a few extra u turns for. 

The place seems to take a few cues from Mr Miyagi and is covered in graffiti from floor to ceiling and of course has a thousand brightly colored lanterns jammed in there too. The street art is nicely done thanks to the skills of local artist Ramy Elzaghawy. As a venue it is quite unique in so far as one whole side of it opens up directly to the sidewalk, so when the weather is with you, this will be a great night spot to people watch and munch on some Asian Street Food.  

Speaking of which, the ipad menu is like a cartoon filled with wacky names of things in another similarity to Mr. Miyagi. This is where the likeness of style between the two venues ends as the food at Bao Wow is very different from a culinary perspective. Taking inspiration from China, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, the best way to describe what’s on offer would be Bao’s and Bowls. There’s also a small sushi selection including a sushi of the day, which on this occasion was a Spicy Tuna Roll (AED 54) that was topped with green tea macarons!  

Other notable items included the Beef Bao (AED 54) or the Moo Moo if you like, which packs a lot of punch and is lip smackingly good. This is one of their signature items and while kind of expensive, a real show stopper. You could probably skip everything else and eat two serves of these and go home happy. They’re seriously good.

The Chicken Gyoza (AED 26) was presented in a memorable way with dry ice but flavor wise was largely forgettable. It was nice enough just nothing ground breaking. There’s a few interesting mocktails on offer with the Coco Bang Bang (AED 35) seemingly the crowd fav.

Moving onto the mains and the Magic Bowl of Beef Ramen (AED 62) was great with a lot of freshness and flavor, while the Seafood Fried Rice (AED 34) looked pretty spectacular with its butterflied shrimp on top but didn’t actually contain a whole lot of seafood in it.

In all the the food was great, while the service was friendly but uninspiring.

Even if it is a slight case of being more style than substance Bao Wow is still absolutely a worthwhile spot to check out at City Walk for some fun and flamboyant Asian flavors.

*Note. The venue has now closed down :(