New Great Bakery
“I got a bitchin' coconut bun from this place and saw so many yummy looking pastries and buns and sandwiches that I'm going to go back and try later.”
“Bun varieties include pumpkin, sweet potato, taro, red bean, egg custard, green tea, milk cream, lemon cream, and the list goes on.”
“The bread part is sweet and yet bread-y, and there are plenty of beans inside that are sweet as they should be, not cloying.”
New Great Bakery
Bike Parking: Yes
Price range.
$ Price range Inexpensive
8 reviews
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If the waitresses know you, they're sweet on you. They're my favorite bakery workers in the world, even the ones that don't care about me, ha!
Love this place because of their creative buns. Not sure who's coming up with these delicious, east meets west abominations, but I don't know any other Chinese bakeries that serve up Bacon Buns, blueberry cakes, and green tea cupcakes!
Decor is nothing to brag about, but you come here for the "I'm a local, dang it!" ambience. It can get loud, you'll have to make your way past the cloud of grannies (gently of course) who aren't sure what they want or are just catching up with their homies, and you'll have to learn to love TVB as the default channel.
Other than that, embrace how this place meets all your low-maintenance needs:
An arsenal of sweet, salty, savory steamed/fried/baked goods, congee, small rice boxes, big rice boxes, breakfast, drinks on drinks on drinks, vendable drinks, and yep, birthday cakes.
This gem screams, "we out hea, tho!"
But don't go there cause you might get in my way. 🙂
I read on Serious Eats, these were some of the best Macau style egg custard tarts around.
Can't even compare to a real Macau tart. Tried the regular Chinese style as well – egg custard had way too much sugar..tart crust way to thick and greasy. Overall pretty terrible tarts.. Ginger honey tea was alright at only $1.25.
I was not impress with this place once I stepped inside. It just didn't look well kept and a bit dirty.
The counters were dirty and so were the floors. I decided to forgo buying any pastries and purchased a drink instead.
I must admit the pastries looked really good.
In Chinatown, there's a bakery on almost every corner, kind of like Starbucks. Some bakeries are small with limited selections but they have the main stream baked goods done worth going back to and then there are the bakeries with sub par selections worth trying just once. Then there are the chains like Fay Da and Tai Pan that are supposed to sell decent baked goods and cakes to live up to their name. But the best ones are the ones that are still independent where they become the routine spot to go to because they uphold a better or more traditional baked good than that of the formula baked goods put out by the chains, though not as presentable or colorful. My favorite are the ones that also sell bits of dim sum, New Great Bakery sells buns, cakes, bread, coffee and a few items from dim sum.
-The Baked Roast Pork Bun (Cha Siu Bao): gets three stars, it's really basic, but it was warm and good. The bread part of the bun is slightly airy, soft and smooth with a slight elastic chew to it but the appearance to the bun had a wrinkled top which offset the appetizing appearance of the bun. I think the chains or other bakeries do it better. Thus the same for the filling, other places do it better. But the filling was filled well enough to not call them cheap; I've had roast pork buns elsewhere that skimp out. The filling is sweet and pork-flavorful but were in little bits of chunks. I've tasted better filling in which were made of broken down pieces of pork not bits of chucks. Yes, there is that small difference if you've eaten enough roast pork buns.
-The Egg Custard: gets four stars for being done well, the custard part of the pastry was firm, not on the liquid side and you can taste the hint of the creamy egg flavor. Other places do it too much on the liquid side and you can't even taste any flavor to the custard. The crust was very good as well, it didn't flake out leaving crust bits all over, I hate when that happens. A tiny bit on the moist side with the pie crust still crisp. Yum!
-The Dim Sum:
—The Pork wrapped in Wonton "Skins" (Shui Mai) gets three stars for being good but not good enough. Because the filling was too meaty and only had a little bit of a tenderness to it. The pork filling had good flavor though. I could taste bits or the flour side of the dough in the wonton wrapping, not smooth, not a good thing.
—The Beef Rice Noodle Rolls (Ngau Cheung) gets four stars for having a smooth and soft enough noodle wrap but it lost a star for being too thick. I think there are two types of noodle wraps, the really thin and the thicker kind. I don't prefer one over the other though since I been eating this stuff since I was a kid and my mom made them, I think the thinner takes more talent to make. The beef filling was flavorful, with a hint of tasty scallion flavor mixed into the beef and a few smidgens of crispy water chestnut or Chinese turnip bits. There's Shrimp Rice Noodle Rolls also.
-They also sell sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves.
If you're in the neighborhood, this is a good place to grab a quick and inexpensive filler. It's not the best, but I will be back if in the area because it is good, basic and worthy to retry.
I've yet to try the coffee.
Usually come here during the mornings because of the cheap selection of noodles they have in the back for breakfast. I'm pondering why can't they have noodles permanently for the entire day! But after morning hours, they switch the selections to rice and lunch specials.
The chow mien is so good! I keep coming back for more. It's not too overly oily and noodles are not too dry. It's cooked to perfection. For $1.50, you a get a small box that's packed noodles. There's no meat but a mix of veggies and onions. Order a small box and get a drink and you're good for the day.
Morning specials include chow mein, beef wrapped with rice noodles, small dim sum (tapas) and a sticky rice.
Service is fast and efficent and they is plenty of seats to chomp your meal down. The bread selection is pretty much what you get out of a chinese bakery. The taste and quality is fresh.
Less than $5 for a Milk Tea, Shrimp Rice Roll AND Pan-Fried Noodles? WIN. The shrimp in the rice roll weren't the freshest (deduct one star), but it didn't take away from the rice roll too much.
Service is quick and abrupt – don't expect a whole lot of customer service. If you're looking to dine-in, expect others to sit down without asking if you have an empty seat.
anOoooother pineapple bun review!! this time pineapple custard bun!
at New Great Bakery they DO NOT SKIMP on the custard so if you're the type who likes more filling & less bread this is your bakery!… the custard filling was a little sweet for me though.. i'm more a fan of the pastey/gooey yolk filling!!
almond-cookie-crust on the top wasn't bad!!
NOTE: bakery is kind of far from the canal st. subway stop i'd usually take, but its close to the grand st. stop
I go to a lot of Asian bakeries. This one's been my favorite for a couple reasons:
1. Cheap! You can get a ton of stuff for like $5.
2. Fluffy! I'm not sure how they do it but their bread-things are magically soft and full of enriched flour.
3. Variety! This isn't one of those places where they have the 2 generic things to choose from. There's a huge display case plus the steamed stuff in the back.
Of all the bakeries I've tried in the Manhattan Chinatown, this one is by far the best. I always order this scallion and ham twist. When eaten warm, it will rock your world.