Announcing: the Baked Pork Bun Project

叉烧餐包, cha shao can bao or char siu tsan bao in Cantonese

I've been eating baked pork buns for nearly 50 years, since the early 1960s when the 10¢ buns at Woey Loy Goey were a major source of sustenance.  My tastes in Chinese food have grown more sophisticated in the ensuing years, yet I still can't resist the allure  of a comely specimen now and then.  The other day I passed The House of Dim Sum on Jackson Street in Chinatown and spotted a tray of baked pork buns that appeared even bigger than my usual Chinatown favorites from You's Dim Sum on Broadway.  On impulse, I went in and picked up a pair, one for eating on the spot and one to take home to weigh and photographically document. That planted the seed for a project: sample and rate every baked pork bun in town I can get my hands on.  .

No, I'm not going to write a blog post every time I try a new baked pork bun specimen. That would leave me with even fewer readers than i have.  I'll keep a Flickr photo set of my explorations, and report back from time to time here. I'll develop a rating system as my sample size grows, since I'm not fully abreast of the current range of prices and heft, for example.

That is all.