CHINESE BAKERIES ARE AWESOME!

At an hour when, remarkably, I was fast asleep, an internet-reader discovered my blog, and was quite pleased. As a blogger I am naturally tickled pink when someone is quite pleased by what they find here.
It's one of the main joys of blogging.

Anonymous commented:
"Stumbled upon your blog, it's awesome. But more importantly, where ARE the best lao po bing 老婆餠 in SF?"

The post underneath which he or she appended their remark was CHINATOWN BAKERIES: DOW SA BING AND OTHER BING THINGS, written in January 2011.


"Stumbled upon your blog, it's awesome. But more importantly, where ARE the best lao po bing 老婆餠 in SF?"


Dear Anonymous commenter,

Thank you!

For me, the very best lou poh beng (老婆餠) in the city are down on Jackson Street at Yummy Bakery.

人仁西餅麵包 YUMMY BAKERY & CAFÉ
607 Jackson Street, San Francisco, CA 94133.
415-989-8388.

But, in all honesty, I have had better ones. There's something about the air here, and the available ingredients, that affects taste.
- - -



老婆餠

Yummy is one of my favourite places, as it is a friendly, bright, clean, and comfortable small bakery, where I can always be assured of a cup of Hong Kong Style milk-tea (港式奶茶 'gong-sik naai-cha', also called 香港奶茶 'heung-gong naai-cha'). Their lou poh beng are pretty darn good, and come in two sizes. In addition to the old wife cookies (老婆餠), they have a wide variety of other treats, which I have enumerated here: Tea and something yummy.

At least once a week I will head down there to spend a pleasant half-hour over snackiepoos. Doing so is very important for the mental health.
At present, like all Chinatown bakeries, they are also selling mooncakes, it being the appropriate season for that.

Yummy Bakery takes pride in what they do.
Justifiably, and very much so.
It is a good place.



Another bakery of which I am fond -- and, remarkably, they ALSO do milk-tea and lo po beng -- is Blossom Bakery right in the center of Chinatown.

幸福餅家 HANG FUK BENG KAA
BLOSSOM BAKERY
133 Waverly Place, between Clay and Washington.
San Francisco, CA 94108.
415-391-8088

Early in the week I would usually head over there for a lotus-seed pastry (蓮蓉餅 lin-yong bing) and a cuppa, but lately I've grown fond of their charsiu sou (叉烧酥 barbecue pork filled rolls), and their curry puff (咖喱角 gaa-lei kok) are also very tasty. The charsiu sou are larger than elsewhere and the flaky turn-over crust is to my mind utterly delightful: airy, fragile, multiple tissue-thin layers, all nice and crumbly crumbly, crunchy-munchy.

It's an old-timey looking place. Clean, but well-worn. Many of the middle-aged gentlemen who head there after work are Toishanese, still adapting to America, but doing so gracefully. They are no longer the young hotshots they once were, but calmer settled adults.
They're well-tempered, and they'll leave you your privacy.
Many of them have known each other for a while.
There might be some gossip exchanged.
Don't worry, no one you know.



There are many other Chinese bakeries in San Francisco, as much of the population is of East Asian heritage. Out in the avenues, in 'New Chinatown' on Clement Street and in the Sunset District, as well as oddly enough on Mission Street, and elsewhere. Seeing as I hang out in the downtown, I tend to frequent the bakeries and coffee shops of the original neighborhood.
But I encourage exploration; the journey of a thousand munchies starts with a single bite.
Who knows, one of them may have the best low pou bing in the universe.
And that discovery will be dynamite.


Chinese Bakeries are awesome.



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