Saturday, November 26, 2005

Wow Bao, Chicago



Greetings from the windy city! For those of you living in America, hope you are enjoying Thanksgiving weekend. We arrived here on Wednesday for H's cousins' reunion. 17 of us have piled on at his eldest cousin sister's home in Aurora, a suburb of Chicago which is supposed to have one of the best school districts in the nation. When looking to relocate anywhere in the U.S. based on your kids' schooling needs, follow the desi trail to the zipcodes that have the best public schools and you can't go wrong.

We drove to downtown Chicago yesterday. Some of our cousins had never been so were excited to take in as many sights and sounds they could on a freezing cold evening. It was 20 degrees fahrenheit and flurrey when we drove in. Our first stop was the mega Borders bookstore on Michigan Avenue for some cappucinos, masala chais and hot chocolate to warm us up. the 2nd floor had a pretty impressive food section and I was dying linger on but everyone else wanted to go clothes and shoes shopping so I allowed myself to be dragged along to the Water Tower Place, one of the nicest shopping malls in downtown.

I noticed Wow Bao the minute we walked in to the Water Tower Place. A wonderfully inviting aroma of garlic, ginger and sesame stir-fried foods wafted in the air. Upon close inspection I discovered that one could take-out steamed buns filled with meat and vegetables, spicy pad thai noodles, rice bowls, soups and salads. Steamed buns are the Chinese version of bread made from flour and yeast except that they are almost always filled with something delicious. I loved the green vegetable bun I ordered along with a glass of Hibiscus Lemonade.



Wow Bao is a fantastic modern concept for Chinese takeout. I'm really looking forward to Wow Bao spreading its wings soon to Manhattan.

6 Comments:

Blogger Shripriya said...

I left you guys messages -- when do you get back and when can we hang?? We miss you in NY :)

7:19 PM  
Blogger lulu said...

hi shri
will call you tonight from o'hare. h is flying back east and i'm heading west for the week. will be back in manhattan friday night. keep saturday night free! looking forward..been way to long...and time is running out...

9:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Lulu,

I just came across your blog and have been reading greedily. I cant find the Flushing temple canteen post again, can you post the address once again? I did a google search and came up with a Sri Maha Vallabha Ganapathi Devasthanam, on Bowne street. Is it the same place?

The temple canteen is truly a find! cant wait to hop on the 7 and get some "divine" food

5:20 PM  
Blogger lulu said...

Hi Shahnaz
Here is the link:
http://lulumanhattan.blogspot.com/2005/10/canteen-at-ganesh-temple.html#comments
Let me know how you like it.

6:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Lulu,

I was missing my moms home made khichdi, and decided to make some myself. I came across a lot of different recipes when I searched Google but they werent what I believe my mom makes. I searched again on Google Images and there it was on your Blog.

I should say to you that I find your blog very interesting for the delicious food that you write about. I miss my mom :( lol.

Keep up the good work,

Cheers,
Muz

P.S Is the blog a food blog? :P

11:08 AM  
Blogger lulu said...

hi muz
i was so touched to read your comment about you finding a close approximation of your mom's khichdi recipe on my blog.
i started the blog last august to document my move to the east coast from san francisco. a year down the line i realized that 80% of my posts were about food. so yes, i guess this is a food blog now!
keep reading,
lulu

12:51 PM  

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