SOUTH Big Bun is back, after its disappearance for over a decade. Don’t scratch your head if you see that Hangzhou people are excited about the prospect, or that they will actually drive hours to buy the steamed buns. The buns aren’t a delicacy, though they do carry warm memories for locals.

Baozi (包子), a type of steamed bun commonly filled with vegetables, meat or red bean paste, is one of the plainest dim sum foods in China. However, “a baozi that saved 62 businesses,” one of the most famous stories involving this food, really happened in Hangzhou over 20 years ago.

It was when China’s market economy was still being shaped, and many restaurants — a low-threshold enterprise — had opened in Hangzhou. However, the market then did not have so large a need, and consequently many closed, or were on the edge of bankruptcy.

Hangzhou South Restaurant, a big, classy place, was one of the ones suffering.

“If people don’t come for lunch and dinner, we’ll sell breakfast. If people don’t buy fancy food, we’ll sell fast food,” its dim sum chef, Wang Renxiao, proposed. It was a novel idea for a big restaurant at that time.

To survive, the restaurant started selling baozi, a traditional Chinese breakfast, in 1992. “It’s something that contains meat, vegetables and flour, it is served hot, and it makes people feel full,” Wang said.

But the change was made only after Wang and his coworkers had done more than 1,000 experiments to find just the right thing.

Eventually, he decided to use a German machine for fermenting the flour, and use flour from Hong Kong, which was three times as expensive as local products. Thus the restaurant made the perfect baozipi — the bun’s outer part, which ideally is white, and does not absorb oil and the juices of the filling too much so it stays soft and light. Also Wang figured out a recipe using 40 percent fat pork and 60 percent lean pork to make the meat stuffing. Other recipes were also invented for those filled with vegetables and red bean paste.

Since the baozi made by Hangzhou South Restaurant was a bit bigger than the average — the standard was 85 grams of baozipi and 40g of meat — it was called Nanfang dabao, or South Big Bun.

The buns were going great guns, as shown by the long, long lines every morning, noon and evening at the gate of the fancy restaurant. People ate it not only for breakfast but for any meal. The record was 30,000-plus buns sold in one day. Wang, the inventor, was happy that he himself could finally quit eating baozi after having had so many.

Soon baozi, which had not been so widespread even as a breakfast, became a popular food in the city. People considered other baozi small and off-color, so they lined up for South Big Bun, even though it was 20 percent more expensive, a rarity during the hard times for eateries in Hangzhou.

The next step for the restaurant seemed to be to open chain stores to serve more customers and make more money, but the restaurant’s owners were credited with thinking of the common good first.

The restaurant’s bosses, including Wang, invited the heads of many other restaurants in town to a meeting, and generously gave them the secret recipe for their South Big Bun — for free!

The recipe was also passed along to many restaurants in other cities. So 62 restaurants, by starting to sell similar baozi, survived and thrived. The story of “a baozi that saved 62 businesses” was reported by many media outlets.

In later years, Hangzhou South Restaurant registered the trademark of South Big Bun and opened chain stores in Zhejiang Province and other areas. In Hangzhou, there were over 30 chain stores that held a combined record of selling over 100,000 buns a day.

Nevertheless, in early 2000s, as urban development widened many roads, many of the stores were demolished, including its headquarters on Yan’an Road. South Big Bun disappeared from the market by 2003.

A decade later, at the beginning of this year, it returned with a bang.

On the first day of South Big Bun’s reopening on Yan’an Road, 8,000 buns were sold — and that’s without any advertising before opening.

“I miss the baozi a lot,” said Wu Huijuan, a 73-year-old Hangzhou woman. “The bun was a part of my life, and I am happy I can refresh the memory now.”

The company now producing the bun is Hangzhou Restaurant, a century-old establishment. Almost all the staff from the old South Restaurant went to the state-owned Hangzhou Restaurant after the baozi business failed.

Today the baozi has a similar taste, but contains less fat for health reasons, and is smaller. “Before, people ate baozi to fill up, now it is a snack and doesn’t need to be that big,” said Wang, who still controls the quality of the South Big Bun.

The company does not have an ambition to open chain stores “because sending semi-finished products to chain outlets makes the baozi not so tasty,” said Liu Guoming, manager of Hangzhou Restaurant.

Three most popular brands of baozi in Hangzhou

South Big Bun

It sells three kinds of baozi — meat, vegetable and red bean paste. The price is 2 yuan (33 US cents) each.

The classic meat bun has a soft yet compact baozipi, and contains a juicy and chewy pork meat filling containing a bit ginger.

Address: 205 Yan’an Rd

Xinfeng Baozi

Xinfeng baozi is the signature food of Xinfeng snack chain, which dates to the late 1990s. It almost replaced South Big Bun after its disappearance.

It sells meat baozi and red bean paste baozi priced at 2 yuan. The size is as big as the old version of South Big Bun, and both the meat and red bean baozi are oilier than average.

Address of stores near the subway and city center: 62 Jiefang Rd, 209 Qingchun Rd, 319 Zhongshan Rd M., 7 Hedong Rd, 238 Fengqi Rd

Ganqishi Baozi

This popular baozi chain emerged in recent years with a fashionable look and many stores. The top feature is that its baozipi is very soft and not compact but airy, and its meat is very fresh. The baozi brand has around 10 types of fillings and promotes new products from time to time. The price is from 1 to 2 yuan.

Address of stores in the city center: 470 Wulin Rd, 158 Wensan Rd, 155 Hai’er Lane, 332 Zhongshan Rd M.