Original Article: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/01/18/bakery-1908-dim-sum-orlando-mills-50-review/
Restaurants, Food & Drink
By Amy Drew Thompson | [email protected] | Orlando Sentinel
PUBLISHED: January 18, 2024 at 5:00 AM EST
With dumplings, buns, boba and more, restaurateur John Zhao’s empire expands with Americans’ knowledge of Asian cuisine.
It is a proud-momma moment when I watch my daughter tear into a chicken foot like it’s no big deal.
Because it’s not a big deal.
Except, says John Zhao, in a roundabout way, it kind of is.
“Fifteen years ago,” says Zhao, owner of the YH Restaurant Group, “American people didn’t know a lot about traditional Chinese food. They didn’t order chicken feet. Ten years ago, the knowledge began to expand and kept going. Today, all the major malls and shopping plazas in North America have boba tea. Buns and cakes are selling in the bakeries. People know what good Chinese food is. I want to put them all together.”
These days, Zhao tells me, he has lots of American friends who eat chicken feet.
That said, it goes by the decidedly sexier name — “Phoenix Claw” at Bakery 1908, the latest in Zhao’s exploding empire of Asian offerings, from Yummy House (which now has five Florida locations, including one in Altamonte Springs) to its soaring YH Seafood Clubhouse in Doctor Phillips to Sweet Buns Bakery and its array of Cantonese-style cakes and buns. There are more, too. And more yet to come. But 1908 deserves its new-kid-on-Colonial spotlight.
“I couldn’t imagine 10 years ago that we would put an Asian bakery like this in Florida,” he says, “You used to find it only in a stall in an Asian supermarket maybe. But people started to pick up a lot of the buns and cakes, which are similar to some in other cultures. People are coming to know a lot about Asian food.”
Bakery 1908 is the amalgam Zhao dreamt of, featuring an impressive array of dumplings and dim sum, along with boba teas, coffee and fresh bakery items, sweet and savory, baked fresh on site, all day long. The dumplings are crafted in Zhao’s central kitchen in Tampa, which four days a week delivers these goodies fresh to his various restaurants throughout the state.
Midday on a Sunday, the crowd at Bakery 1908 is buzzing in the beautifully renovated space in Orlando’s Mills 50 neighborhood, and as Zhao noted, it is a diverse one. The tables turn quickly, though some choose to order their goodies to go, just in case. Many folks around us are unpacking their plastic bags to eat, but we are lucky enough to grab seats quickly, grabbing fruity teas at the counter to enjoy before a server shows up tableside with steaming baskets: pan-fried chive dumplings (pork, chive, shrimp; $9.99), beautifully seasoned fried tofu ($12.99), wonton soup dumplings ($9.99), pork and shrimp siu mai ($9.99) and the formidable phoenix claw ($8.99).
“I use jumbo chicken feet!” Zhao tells me of the dish called “grandma’s favorite” on the menu. Soup chicken was a favorite of mine when I visited my own grandma, I tell him. Especially the skin.
“Oh, if you like the texture of chicken skin, then you will like the feet even better!”
It’s true. But the rest of the offerings, we found, were equally enticing. Those chive dumplings, especially, are crave-worthy, as are the siu mai. The latter is the shop’s No. 1 seller, and they, like the other items are impressively portioned. I’d figured this order would be food for about three, but it could easily have fed four.
“There’s at least two shrimp in each of the siu mai,” says Zhao, who has seen business grow since a slow debut in December.
While the customers at YH Seafood Clubhouse, with its traditional Hong Kong-style cuisine, are still largely Chinese, Bakery 1908 cuts a swath through the demographic.
“Fifty percent at 1908 is American and Latino, the other 50 is Asian: 30 percent Chinese, the rest is Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean.” Zhao took time examining everything from convention and school schedules to which restaurants serve dim sum later to create a space where before 11 a.m. guests come in for luscious donuts, savory buns studded with sausage and pork-filled turnover pastries. Every single thing I sampled, from light-as-air matcha mousse cake to beautifully swirled coffee buns, was outstanding. And fresh. Baking begins in early morning and goes all day long, wrapping up around at 5 p.m.
“Nothing ever sits overnight.”
When a friend and I arrive at opening time on a weekday, staffers are loading baked items into cases and baskets. Everything is self-serve: Grab the tongs, load your tray, then bring it to the register for packing and payment. It’s a nice system that flows smoothly, even amid Sunday’s full house.
The taro filling inside the donut is still warm, I note, as my breakfast bud tears the thing in half. I’m eating light this morning — one bite of this and the breakfast bun he’s chosen. There’s a big hunk of hot dog in it. I am sated. He easily polishes off both items along with coffee as I sip my green tea, noting the freshness. It’s an exercise in moderation. I am simultaneously angry and relieved I don’t live closer. This place is dangerous, doubly so after 11 a.m. when the dim sum machine starts rolling.
Soon, there will be another 1908 near Millenia. Then another in Kissimmee. Then Zhao will take the show to Jacksonville, but there are more YH concepts coming in the metro. His Dim Sum House will be opening shops in Clermont and Jacksonville. And there are expansions within each concept, as well. As this story hits, 1908’s menu will be adding several new vegetable dishes. Zhao is eager to introduce them, and others, to a more educated consumer.
“My dream is to be the Asian Panera!” he tells me.
He’s well on his way. And I, for one, welcome our new dim sum overlord.
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