Every SuSuBao bun starts with one person's memory. SuSuBao was founded by Su Shenru, a woman born and raised in Shanghai, who grew up with the sound of a cast-iron pan sizzling in her mother's kitchen every morning.
This is the story behind the buns — why a Shanghai childhood ended up on tables across Vietnam.
A kitchen in Shanghai
Su Shenru was the eldest child in her family. Her earliest memories are of early Shanghai mornings: the smell of warm flour, the hiss of the pan, and the cloud of white steam that rose whenever her mother lifted the lid. Winter was the season she remembers most — when it was cold enough to sting, and biting into a Sheng Jian Bao still hot from the pan, letting the little burst of hot pork soup spill onto your tongue, was the warmest kind of happiness.
For her, Sheng Jian Bao (生煎包) was never just food. It was a whole childhood folded into a bun.
Leaving home, carrying a taste
She left home young — a teenager away from her family — and later studied abroad. She travelled and lived far from Shanghai, but the taste of those mornings travelled with her. When she settled in Vietnam, she carried that flavour in her heart the way you carry a piece of home.
That is where the idea for SuSuBao began: not as a business plan, but as a way to bring a whole landscape of memory back — and set it down on Vietnamese tables.
SuSuBao, since 2021
SuSuBao opened its first shop in Hanoi in 2021. The method stayed true to Shanghai: the same cast-iron pan seared until the base turns golden and crisp, the same scattering of sesame and spring onion on top — with only the gentlest tuning of the seasoning to suit Vietnamese tastes. Every bun is hand-folded fresh each morning, never mass-produced or frozen.
What happened next surprised even her. Guests came out of curiosity — a bun with a crackling base and a soup-filled centre — and came back again and again for that first bite. You can read the full origin of the dish itself on our Sheng Jian Bao page, and see the wider spread on the dim sum menu.
Six corners of Shanghai in Vietnam
Today SuSuBao has grown to six locations: two in Ho Chi Minh City, two in Hanoi, and one each in My Tho and Bien Hoa. Each shop is meant to be a small corner of Shanghai in Vietnam — where the pan still sizzles every morning and the smell of toasted sesame still drifts down the street, just as it did where the bun was born.
Hungry for the real thing? Browse the full menu or find your nearest branch.
