New Great Bakery

I am very confused. I went in at 7 pm during their evening sale (3 for $ 1), and I asked for a pumpkin bun. I ended up with 3 buns. I do not think any of them are pumpkin, perhaps they ran out. I think they are custard buns? They are soft, fluffy, and delicious though, so no complaints here.

Big selection of buns, both baked and steamed, makes this a great place to stop into for a quick snack when you’re «crossing Grand Street»!

In addition to the lunch items I have written of before, their buns are delicious as well, especially when they are fresh out of the oven. I usually go in the mornings on my way to work for their buns and the place is always busy, with some people jumping in front of the queue to try to get ahead. So be mindful of the people who nudge their way in. I usually just nudge them back. So back to the buns. The selection is huge and they are very innovative with their buns. In addition to the staples, they have the varieties I have yet to find in another bakery in this area. That’s one of the reasons I keep going back. Another reason is that their buns are on the light side and are generously filled. I can taste their dough isn’t very dense, which happens to be in my favor. I love their coffee too, which is always piping hot (some bakeries aren’t very good at it). They also have specialty drinks already prepared and refrigerated on the right at the entrance. I have yet to try but they look good.

Where else can you get a delicious red bean bun, warmed if you’re eating it there, for a dollar!!! They have so many other choices, but that’s my favorite & that’s what I had the twice I’ve been there. 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.
I work in the area once a week & it’s a place I like to stop into occasionally for this treat!

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!
Décor 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. :)

out of all the bakeries along grand street, actually, in all of chinatown, i frequent this one the most. huge variety of freshly baked goods. even dimsum. curry fish balls. fried noodle/​rice. rice boxes. spareribs with fried egg and greens over rice = $ 4.50.
my fave quick snack is the crispy friend fish fillet bun garnished with pickled cucumbers and carrots. $ 1.80. and the bacon croissant (also garnished with picked cucumbers and carrots. $ 1.80. add Sriracha to that. Boom.

This bakery has a good selection of interesting Chinese pastries. They are not usually busy so service is good although lacking in English. I recommend their green tea bun and metro almond bun

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Reviewing only the Portuguese egg tarts… Don’t bother. They may look good, but the custard lacked that expected richness; it was just a sub-​par daan-​taat, with a slightly caramelized top. The crust was heavy and much too sweet. Also, the milk tea was not HK-​style (although they never claimed that).

Typical items for sale, with a few more interesting ones. The interesting ones are worth trying. The hot dog sandwich (as opposed to bun) includes egg and is in the form of a wrap in soft, sweetish bread with lettuce and mayo. The small amount of ketchup almost spoils it, but it’s damned tasty for a buck seventy-​five. The fried chicken and fried fish buns are right on the ball for a buck fifty. Bacon sandwiches and pizza buns are also available.
Add a star if you’re looking for a little more novelty than the typical Chinese bakery, but with typically low prices.

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.

OK, the guy swears that we had been to Great Bakery before, but I have no memory of having been here previously. It’s a pretty standard Chinese bakery, but I have to admit that I am prone to giving an extra star to all providers of egg custard tarts. They are providing a truly valuable service to the world. Plus, this particular bakery has «Great» right in the name, AND they have a cool shrine with a statue of the warrior Guan Yu, subduer of demons!
All I can say, is after we sat down here with a couple of egg custard tarts each, and a couple of cups of insanely hot coffee, our demons of hunger were subdued.
They actually have two different kinds of egg tarts. The ‘Hong Kong’ style is the more typical one, with a wetter, more jelly-​like custard. The ‘Macau’ style has custard which is almost the consistency of cheesecake. Both are great!

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

Standard, not standout, Chinese bakery.
New Great Bakery offers a selection of sweet and savory baked goods. They’re perfectly serviceable, but I’ve had better. Then again, I’ve only bought their hot dog bun — which is a bit drier than I’d like — and their coconut buns.
While this isn’t yet my favorite Chinatown bakery, they’re fast, cheap (damn cheap), and convenient (depending on where you are), plus there’s seating if you want to sit a spell.

Chinatown has several bakeries but this is one of the best ones. If you thought Chinese bakeries couldn’t get any cheaper, New Great Bakery will prove you wrong. They have a wide range of chilled cakes, sweet and savory buns, and hot dishes too. My favorite buns are:
Milk bun ($ 0.90): It’s got a sugary crust on the top and milky sweet condensed milk-​like filling in the center. Very delicious.
Taro, red bean and roast pork bun ($ 1.10): It’s made out of three small buns stuck together, each with its own filling: taro in one, red bean in one, and roast pork in one. If you can’t decide between a sweet or a savory bun, this one will help you solve your dilemma.
Their savory sandwiches are good too. The ones with meat cutlets in them look a little suspect but go for anything with ham or hot dog in it. The bread is chewy and sweet and processed meat can’t really go bad.

Pretty standard Chinese bakery. They have a bit of pastries but even more savory items, including lots of buns. I got the fried fish sandwich, which was small but flavorful. The Mexico Almond Bun, while rather plain in design, was just the right amount of sweet.