Located within the Westside Acton Park near the Lake Burley Griffin is the recently opened food vendor The Fish Can. From my first glance into the kitchen, I immediately recognised a familiar face, the owner of The Fish Shack. At first I was not 100 percent positive but upon examining the menu, one item instantly caught my attention. Fresh sugar cane juice!!! From this single item I can confirm that The Fish Can is owned by the same people who run The Fish Shack in the city.

Yesterday I had my first bite of the delicious baos from The Fish Can. I was quite wary of baos because in the past I had ordered a very disappointing bao from a Taiwanese eatery. I was disappointed because the baos supposedly originated from Taiwan.

Judging but the name The Fish Can, you would expect everything to be fish related. This is true but there are exceptions.  For people who aren’t a big fan of fish and seafood,  they do have alternatives such as braised pork belly and chicken breast. Vegetarian friends do not fear as they also have a tofu bao available. The prices for the baos are very reasonable, sitting under the $5 mark.

The first bao I ordered was their Tiger Prawn bao. The crumbed tiger prawn sat on a bed of lemon slaw, all encased in a light and fluffy bao. I really enjoyed eating this because you can get a wide variety of textures in one bite.

The other bao I ordered came in a pack of 4. This is the Surf and Turf baos. This includes the Porkster (free range pork belly), Tiger prawn, Not so Crab (crispy soft shelled crab) and the Crumbed fish.

The Porkster bao consists of a thick slice of well braised pork belly, house relish,  coriander and crushed szechuan peanuts. The Not so Crab bao is a tempura soft shelled crab with a lemon cabbage slaw and szechuan aioli. The Crumbed fish bao is slightly identical to the Not so Crab bao but instead of szechuan aioli it’s tartare sauce, the best accompaniment for fish.

If savoury are not your thing,  they also do sweet baos which are equally facinating as their savoury counterpart. As I was craving chocolate, the Mars bao was a must-have. When you split the bao open the chunk of mars bar inside is perfectly melted and oozing. This bao wasnt as fluffly as the savoury ones.

The other dessert that I ordered was the Bao fries which comes with a condensed milk glaze in either black sesame or pandan flavour. The bao fries are very similar to the deep fried mantou that you order from Chinese restaurants. The condensed milk glaze brings back memories when my siblings and I would order deep fried mantou when we eat out. We would always get extra condensed milk as we would always fight over it. The black sesame and pandan are nice touches but I personally would prefer the pandan flavour more. But what I would really like to see is if they will do a peanut butter and condensed milk bao fries as that combination is really delicious.

Please note that if you ordered a savoury bao prior to the dessert bao, you will be shocked because the dessert bao is not the flat open type but the steamed buns you get from Chinese yum cha places. The bao with the little yellow dot reminds me of those custard filled steamed buns which I always order when having yum cha with the family.

For those who haven’t tried The Fish Can or are super hungry,  I would recommend ordering the bao packs because they are really good value and you get to taste a majority of what The Fish Can has to offer. But you need to order a side of bao fries as well,  that way you will have a complete meal.

So next time when you want a quick feed or something different, give The Fish Can a go you’ll be hooked after the first bite.

The Fish Can (Opposite to The One)

Address: Westside Acton Park, 3 Barrine Drive, Acton, ACT 2601

Opening hours:

Thursday – Saturday 11:30am- 9:00pm

Sunday 11:30am – 4:00pm