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Food

Are you into bao now? Restaurant with steamed buns, or bao, is open near SMU in Dallas

Get your buns to Sumo Shack: Its steamed buns are hot.

Sumo Shack, an Asian restaurant that opened May 4 on SMU Boulevard in Dallas, sells ramen, hot dogs and bao. (Wait, hot dogs? We'll come back to those.) Bao first: It's a pillowy, steamed bun, the size of a small taco, stuffed with ingredients. One example is the shiitake bao, a bun with sauteed mushrooms, cucumber, crispy shallots and cilantro. Another is the traditional pork bello bao, with a generous hunk of pork belly dotted with mayo, peanuts and scallion oil.

Check out the mural on the wall at Dallas restaurant Sumo Shack and you're in for an...
Check out the mural on the wall at Dallas restaurant Sumo Shack and you're in for an adventure. It extends around the corner. (Thanin Viriyaki)

Chef Dien Nguyen is hoping bao, which is easy to eat on the go, might be great late-night food. The restaurant has a to-go window for walk-up customers. Sumo Shack will stay up late, until 4 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays -- as in, very late Friday and Saturday nights.

The restaurant also sells bowls of ramen. (It doesn't sell its sister restaurant Wabi House's fantastic dry garlic noodles. Darnit.) Notably, Sumo will sell its ramen to go. Wabi on Greenville Avenue in Dallas -- and many other ramen houses in town such as Ten in West Dallas -- won't sell ramen to go because the dish is meant to be eaten when it's at its best: just as the noodles have been dropped into hot broth, as Serious Eats explains. Sumo's broth is chicken-based, which means it can hold up longer, says a spokeswoman.

Dallas restaurant Sumo Shack has two hot dogs on its menu.
Dallas restaurant Sumo Shack has two hot dogs on its menu. (Thanin Viriyaki)

And those hot dogs? The Sumo Dog is topped with miso chili, queso, scallion and onions. The Tokyo Dog is topped with seaweed, sesame seeds, spicy ketchip, mayo and bonito flakes (dried fish flakes).

Sumo Shack's menu is inexpensive: Its highest-priced item is $9.95, for ramen. Most adults, if ordering only bao (which cost $3.95 to $4.95 each) will want to order two or three.

There's also a full bar that opens onto a patio on SMU Boulevard on pleasant days.

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Sumo Shack replaced Banh Shop, a fast-casual Asian place that specialized in banh mi sandwiches. Move over, banh, it's bao now.

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5629 SMU Blvd., Dallas.