Bend the Bao — Restaurant in Orlando

Went on Saturday night at 8PM, so you'd think it would have been prime time for freshly made food. We chose to split the 3 bao for $18 (fiance and I) with bites of each.

We agreed this was, hands down the grossest bao - HOW DO YOU EVEN MAKE GROSS BAO!? - we've ever tried. We were very excited for the duck, as it is one of our favorite meats. That was our first mistake. It tasted like chicken meat that had been boiled 8 times in water to rid it of flavor and render it to mush, with a weird grey-white cream sauce on top. Grateful it tasted bad and we didn't eat more - the grey color of the duck screamed "imminent food poisoning"

The brisket option was supposed to be southwest flavors, but tasted like liquid smoke and boiled meat. This wasn't pieces of beef as displayed on the menu. It was weirdly pasty, cooked down braised "meat" in what I'm assuming was some kind of cigarette butt reduction. The red onion was a weird paste, and lacked flavor. There were no jalapenos as described.

Last but not least, and the "best" of the bunch was the pork belly bao. Ever eaten a charcoal briquette? Well, we got to enjoy that sensation when when we bit into this. I don't know how you ruin pork belly, but this establishment gets 5 stars for innovation on that one. The sauce was actually really good. Pity, though, because the meat was inedible, burnt, and as many other reviewers have noticed - they were out of the ingredients they'd need to hide these errors.

0/10 for food. Service was what you'd expect at city...

We ate at Bend the Bao twice during our visit to Universal last week. Our first visit my husband placed his order with Diego. He had no issues with the food or employees and had to get our food to-go at the last minute.

On our second visit, I ordered. I was the only one in line. The employee, Deztine, who took my order was not customer service friendly. I paid with a gift card and she didn't even hand it back to me. She set it to the front of the cash register to my left. I'm glad I was paying attention because I would have forgot to grab it. As soon as my order was paid I asked if the food is placed in to-go containers because I was walking back to our hotel. Deztine said no, so I asked if I could get it to-go. She said, "well you have to ask when you are placing the order". She didn't even attempt to tell the cook that it was to-go (I was the only food order they were making at the time). When my order was finished, she calls my name and slides my food to me in the brown little holders. I'm not sure why it was such an issue to ask for the food to-go. I said again "I need this to go". She goes, "Oh" and hands me one plastic container. I didn't even get a bag.

We like eating Bao and will spend a little extra for eating at Universal but I will not go back when an employee has a bad attitude. Universal can do better, people go for vacation and to have a good time. They don't need to deal with employees who are miserable and want to take everyone...

I hate giving bad reviews, but I have to do the world a favor and warn everyone how horrible this place is. There is a reason why they don’t have a line! Don’t make the mistake of paying cash here. They can’t subtract or think for themselves without a computer. I ordered 2 bao and asked for water. They charged me for a bottle of water. My total was $18.27. I gave the cashier $20 and told her that I had the change but she wasn’t listening and entered the $20 in the system. I handed her a quarter and a nickel (30 cents). She took my change and handed me a dollar and some change. I told her that my correct change should be $2.03. Since she couldn’t add, she told her coworker that I gave her 20 cents after she opened the drawer. Well, they both don’t know math, so I took a calculator and explained that $20.30-$18.27=$2.03. They needed someone to retrieve the dollar and I ended up giving up and taking the food. The bao was okay but the protein on the bao was the size of two quarters. It’s literally 2 bites of food per bao and they’re charging $12.99 for it. It should be called Bend Over and let the Bao take your money.

I expect for these touristy restaurants to charge extra, but this...