Dim sum takeout bags with your logo. Warm buns, whole tarts, no soggy bottoms.

Dim sum to go is a Bay Area habit

Walk down Stockton Street in Chinatown on a Saturday morning and you'll see it: people leaving bakeries with paper bags full of pink boxes, char siu bao and egg tarts still warm. Out on Clement Street and Geary in the Richmond District, it's the same story. Down the Peninsula in Millbrae and over in Cupertino, families pick up trays of dumplings for a weekend lunch at home.

Takeout dim sum is huge here, and it's tricky. Steamed food wants to stay moist. Baked food wants to stay dry. Fried food wants to stay crisp. All three often ride home in the same bag.

This page is for the shops that make that food. If you want the basics first, see how printed kraft takeout bags work in the Bay Area.

Steam is your friend, until it isn't

Har gow, siu mai and cheung fun come out of the steamer wet and glossy. That's how they should taste. The problem starts when the box closes and the steam has nowhere to go. It drips off the lid onto the wrappers and turns them gummy.

Line the box with a sheet of parchment or a cabbage leaf if you already do that in-house, leave the lid slightly cracked for short trips, and pack steamed items in their own box, apart from anything baked or fried. Water from one box should never touch another.

Steamed, baked and fried each get their own box. Mixing them is how a perfect egg tart turns into a sad one.

Buns and egg tarts need air

Baked char siu bao, pineapple buns and Portuguese style egg tarts are at their best a few minutes out of the oven. Trap them in a sealed container and the flaky crust softens fast.

For bakery orders, a paper box or paper sleeve inside the bag is perfect. Paper breathes. A kraft bag over the top keeps them warm without sweating them. Put the egg tart box flat and level, near the top of the bag, so nothing heavy presses on the custard.

Packing a family dim sum order

• Heavy and saucy go first. Chicken feet in black bean sauce, spare ribs, lo mai gai and congee sit flat on the bottom.
• Steamed boxes next. Dumplings and rice rolls on top of the heavy layer, lids pressed but not crushed.
• Fried items above that. Taro puffs, spring rolls and sesame balls stay crisp when nothing wet is on top of them.
• Baked goods last. Egg tarts and buns go on the very top, flat, so the crust stays whole.
• Soy sauce and chili oil in the side pockets. The 3.5″ gussets give small sauce cups a spot to stand upright.

A bag that can take the weight

A Sunday order for six people can fill four or five stacked boxes. Our bag is 12″ × 7″ × 14″ with a flat square bottom, so those boxes stack straight up instead of tipping. It carries 22 lb by the paper handles, which is plenty for a full family order going up a Chinatown hill or into the back seat in Millbrae. Full details are on the bag size page.

Seal the folded top with one of the 100 food tamper-evident stickers included free with every box. For delivery orders, it's a simple way to show nothing was opened on the way.

What looks good on a bakery bag

Red and gold are classic for Chinese bakeries, and both look great on brown kraft. A clean shop name, maybe your Chinese characters next to the English, and one simple picture like a bun or a steamer basket. Keep thin lines thick enough to read.

If your logo is pastel or light, choose the bright white bag instead. Your design goes across up to 12 × 14 in on the front, setup is $0, and you see it on the bag before you pay. Just opening? A low minimum order lets you start with 50 bags.