Never mastered eating with chopsticks? Try these activities instead – as illustrated by Bao’s Mr Shing Tat Chung.

When we first featured the team behind Bao (for their beef soup recipe, head here), they were serving Taiwanese food to queue (and queue) for from premises in Soho. Since then, they have opened a bookings (hurrah!) restaurant in Fitzrovia, and now have a new restaurant, Xu, on the way in spring. Given that they still offer their wares from their original Netil Market stall, you might say they have a mini empire on their hands.

As well as having business nous, the trio (sister and brother Ms Wai Ting and Mr Shing Tat Chung, and his wife Ms Erchen Chang), who all studied design at university, are incredibly creative. They wouldn’t reveal the magic formula for a successful restaurant franchise, so, with a new mini Bao set menu launching at Bao Fitzrovia this week, we asked them for help with our chopstick skills instead. Mastered transferring food from bowl to mouth? Mr Chung, who designed the Bao logo, has come up with an illustrated guide for those who want to learn more.

For those-hard-to reach spots, help is always at hand in the shape of a chopstick, which is usually about 23cm in length. But remember: scratching that itch in a restaurant, especially in a state of undress, is often frowned upon.

To paraphrase the advice of The Karate Kid’s Mr Miyagi, a man who can catch a fly with chopsticks can achieve anything. You might need a little practice, but when you’ve mastered it, the world is your oyster. Or should that be pork bun?

Chopsticks have been used as kitchen utensils in east Asia for more than 6,000 years, which brings new meaning to the idea of timeless, ergonomic design. However you’re turning your bacon (fork, fingers, spatula?), you’re doing it wrong.

Far more effective than a plunger, a chopstick is the perfect implement to jam into your plug hole and waggle around frantically until the blockage has cleared. Just make sure you wash it thoroughly afterwards.

When consuming crab and lobster, watch your dinner guests struggle to extract meat with their superfluous double-pronged seafood picks and calmly use the streamlined instrument already at (or in) hand.

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