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Authentic Mooncakes Year Round: Eastern Bakery, Oldest in SF Chinatown

Eastern Bakery, at the corner of Grant and Commercial, is the oldest bakery in SF Chinatown, having operated continuously since 1924, originally by the Lee family. The current owner is Orlando Kuan, who can be seen peddling made-in-house items through the limited operating hours, roughly 12-4. 

Eastern Bakery is best known for three things: genuine lotus mooncakes, authentic coffee crunch cake, and Smackles, the original "cow ear cookies", all of which can be seen at "front door" table. 

Moon cakes have been around China for thousands of years, but it was probably most famous for its use to hide messages to coordinate a revolt against the Mongol occupiers on August 15th, which lead to the founding of the Yuan Dynasty. Before that, they were used as "sacrifices" to the moon goddess.

President Clinton tasted some mooncake when he visited Chinatown back in 1995 and took a box home with him, according to photos in the store.  

Photo of President Clinton's visit in 1995,
via Lalaki-Papaki / Tripadvisor.com

Eastern Bakery has probably the most authentic mooncakes around, at least according to themselves. They are made with genuine 100% lotus roots, ground for 8 hours for proper smoothness, with no filling from other cheaper roots as substitutes. In fact, you can custom order them year-round. However, they are generally quite large... AND VERY DENSE, so if you are just walking by, order one or two mini-mooncake instead. They are more of the size of a large coin, and usually warm. Just beware of limited hours... COVID forced it to 12p-4p.

As for Coffee Crunch Cake... let's just say if you ever mention that cake in San Francisco, someone will likely mention Blum's which was founded in 1892 but did not invent the cake until the 1940s. Blum's actually closed back in the 1970s, but their Coffee Crunch Cake recipe lived on in two places: Yasukochi's Sweet Shop in Japantown (inside Super Mira Market)... and Eastern Bakery. Though The Japantown version is arguably more authentic. 

And Smackles... they have retro-packaging because they are meant to be. 


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About the author

Kasey is a professional tour guide and amateur historian who specialized in Chinatown History and Tours. You will often find him guiding groups sampling delicious food and learning interesting historical tidbits about Chinatown most weekends.

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