@hooiyewlim 29 September 2025 more from that month

Nan Yang Siew Bao Pork Siew Bao

This is the Food Place food court, located at Pavilion Mall. The food court is located beside the Oriental Kopi Restaurant. I will introduce you to another food from another stall.

This time I ordered Pork Siew Bao from the Nan Yang Siew Bao stall for breakfast, which cost RM3.70 per piece. The Pork Siew Bao is a famous baked bun filled with savoury-sweet barbecued pork. Unlike the more common *char siu bao* (叉烧包), which is usually steamed and fluffy, the *siew bao* is wrapped in a flaky, golden-brown pastry crust that is baked to crisp perfection. The filling typically consists of diced pork marinated in a sweet-salty sauce made with soy, oyster sauce, sugar, and aromatics, creating a sticky and flavorful interior. The pastry itself is layered and slightly buttery, offering a texture similar to puff pastry but with a more compact consistency. The siew bao has its roots in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, where it became a local speciality in the 1970s. It was popularised by Empayar Seremban Siew Pow and quickly gained fame across Malaysia as a unique variant of the Chinese char siu bao. While traditional char siu bao came from Cantonese dim sum culture, the Malaysian siew bao evolved as a baked alternative, more durable for takeaway and travel. Over time, stalls like Nan Yang Siew Bao brought the pastry into urban food courts and shopping malls, making it a nostalgic yet modern snack. Today, siew bao is enjoyed not only as a tea-time pastry but also as a travel souvenir, with many travelers stopping by Seremban specifically to buy boxes of freshly baked buns. So, what you have here is not just a pork-filled pastry, but a piece of Malaysian food heritage that blends Chinese dim sum tradition with local innovation.