Eastern Bakery, San Francisco

720 Grant Ave, San Francisco, CA 94108

Good for: Everyone
Price Range: Inexpensive
Features: Chinese-style bakery, Coffee Crunch Cake

If you were looking for a yummy place to stop in for some delectables after shopping in San Francisco Chinatown, look no more. Eastern Bakery is a little shop that is easily missed but one my family frequents fairly often. A few of the items we usually order are cha siu bows (pork buns – we get the steamed ones here), bak tong go (gelatin-like sweet rice cake), and cocktail buns (don’t know the chinese name – bun with butter, sugar, coconut). Those are pretty standard snacks for a chinese bakery but they are consistently good here and reasonable. But that’s not the reason we specifically come here.

Their Coffee Crunch Cake is delicious!!! It’s light, fluffy, and oh so good. I couldn’t get a good picture because we already bought the last whole cake they currently had and they the signs mixed up. Oh well – you get the idea. The best part is that the cake is covered with hard coffee candies. The strange thing is they seem identical to the candies we get in the Netherlands called Hopjes. Weird, eh? So this wonderful cake is a mix of cultures and palettes, one we have actually been enjoying for over a decade.

So the next time you are walking down Grant Street and start feeling ‘the munchies’ step into this little shop. Keep in mind that it’s very typical in Chinatown for there to only be a semi-line. You kind of just have to step up and shout out your order. The tight space, non-personable workers, and cash-only register are definitely worth the inconvenience though. Oh, and you’ll even be treated to a laminated picture on the wall of Bill Clinton visiting the shop!