'Dark Kitchen' Brings Bao To MetroWest

FRAMINGHAM, MA — How about a side of Mongolian beef dumplings with your deep-dish pizza?

There's a new dining concept in MetroWest, offering a special type of Chinese dumpling sold from a newer type of restaurant. The Chicago-based chain Wow Bao is now selling its dumplings (bao) and potstickers out of the Uno Pizzeria along Route 9 in Framingham.

No, it's not two Chicago restaurants teaming up to take over the East Coast. Just as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning Wow Bao rolled out a new business model, shipping frozen bao to restaurants across the nation, which can be cooked locally and delivered via apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats.

Ghost kitchens — or "dark kitchens," as Wow Bao calls them — became especially popular during the pandemic, allowing struggling restaurants to sell more products through delivery apps under different brand names. Perhaps the most famous ghost kitchen is Guy Fieri's Flavortown, which began operating out of Bertucci's restaurants in Massachusetts during the pandemic, including in Framingham, Holliston and Westborough.

Wow Bow sells a variety of not-so-traditional dumplings for delivery, including Mongolian beef, teriyaki, cheeseburger and BBQ flavor. Bao are also a relatively recent food trend. Favorites like Dough Zone and Din Tai Fung have exploded in popularity along the West Coast, largely due to their popular xiaolongbao, which are dumplings filled with hot broth.

The Framingham Uno Pizzeria/Wow Bao is one of six such setups in Massachusetts, with other locations in Dedham, Wrentham, Braintree, Revere and Boston.

Wow Bao is novel, but if you want to skip the dark kitchen experience, there are plenty of other places to get great dumplings in the area, including Dumpling Daughter in Weston, Uncle Cheung's and Sichuan Gourmet in Framingham and Shaanxi Gourmet in Natick.