Bread of Life Bakery

I am really sad to learn that this shop on Clement was closed as of April 26, 2015.
Their coffee & cream bun was my favorite and you cannot get pastry like that one elsewhere.
I guess their Oakland place is still there but it is far for me to go there, just to buy buns.
I am writing this hoping that BOL will have a small kiosk or that sort in SF area in the future rather than just «focusing on group orders» and such… :(
Liked:
Coffee & cream bun
Coconut tart
Egg tart
Just ok:
Mini pork bun
Mini hot dog
Disliked:
Scallion loaf (had weird «sour» after taste)
I am confused… the products has their website as «www​.bread​oflife​.com» but it takes you to «her​ald​bread​oflife​.com» and it is not the website for BOL. What’s going on?

This bakery is cheap and good! I like getting their loaf breads for $ 2.50.

Buyer beware. Look what is in the bag before eating. They had a sampling event on May 17 and the pineapple bun did taste pretty good. Got two rolls of pineapple bun and red bean bun for $ 5 total. Went home and found two small flies inside one of the package!
I support your ministry to help immigrants but please investigate how the flies could ever get into the sealed package. Plus please admit your fault and do your investigation when a customer bring you back the bun, instead of making excuse like «it never happens before.»

The coconut tarts and the milk tea are both excellent. The other breads are just OK, but given the prices, there’s absolutely no reason to complain about them incessantly as though they’ve somehow ruined your entire life by simply existing. You might get a bit of a sermon if you stand around for too long, but whatever.

It was closing and they had their dan tats (egg custards) and baos (sweet buns) out so i decided to give it a shot. I’m always looking out for a new place to by my chinese desserts. I was underwhelmed. The sizes and packages were cute but i’ve had better. i gave them a shot, i’ll probably be going across the street.

I liked this little shop.
The shop owners were super friendly and adorable :)
Everything is small and everyone knows the smaller an item is the cuter and more delicious it looks. Bigger is not always better when it comes to desserts: P
Food — my red bean bun was yummy, and the egg tarts were different than the normal type — no flaky crust, cookie-​like crust. Great bite-​size, cheap, and still hit the spot.
We got to sample 3 diff items — the owners are soo nice :)
Milk tea is good with the breads.
Would recommend? Yes :) Just be open-​minded and note that the egg tarts are diff than the traditional ones.

This place rocks. You wouldn’t want to make a meal of their sugary bun assortments, but they make for a great dessert or party favor, and cost next to nothing.
My favorite item on the menu is the tiny egg tart. I’m tellin’ you — pop those things into the refrigerator for an hour or so, and you’ll be amazed with deliciousness.
The employees are very friendly, and always come through on time when I make a large pre-​order.
What a nice addition to Clement Street!

Bread of Life doesn’t make their own pastries it looks like. There’s no kitchen in this place and everything is prepackaged. Everything here is really really cheap.
They have hot dog buns, pineapple buns, dinner rolls, egg tarts, etc. Everything you would find in a dim sum pastry place. Quality of the pastries are really so so. Nothing amazing about them. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t good.
Overall, the cheap price makes this place an okay to hit for some quick pastries. You get what you paid for basically at this place.

This place sells cheap buns and egg tarts. Everything is prepackaged so your wait time is cut in half.
What’s good to get
Pineapple buns
Hot dog buns
Stay away
Dinner rolls — they were excessively dry!
Toss up
The crust on the egg tarts are not flakey. It’s more like a shortbread quality. Kids liked it but DH didn’t.
Service is friendly.

Bread of Life Bakery, makes minibuns of various sorts, egg tarts, and sometimes serves coffee. it’s a for profit ministry that uses it’s gains to «train chinese immigrants…»
their buns resembles dinner rolls and taste like dinner rolls except for the foster farm turkey dog within or a few bits of char siu, beans, etc. buns usually 3/​$ 1.
buns taste better than they did a few months ago.
not a good value, not recommened.
you should eat just one and share the 3 pak with 2 friends.

The best part about this place is its price. 2 egg tarts for $ 1 and 2 BBQ pork pineapple buns for $ 1.5, how much cheaper can it get?
The egg tarts were alright, weren’t too fresh and definitely can not beat Golden Gate Bakery. The BBQ pork pineapple buns were a lot better, with BBQ pork inside and pineapple crust on the outside.

1) If it’s true that the owner helps immigrants get started by training them and giving them work, then kudos +1
2) Pricing is affordable and who doesn’t like a good deal! +1
3) Everything tastes about what you paid…
Gotta say, the pastrys don’t taste good at all, and the crust on the da-​tahts is just a dry tasteless piece of substance.
If you want really cheap Chinese pastries then this is the place to be, if you want them to actually taste good then I’d try some place else.

The bread is decent but not super amazing. What I do love about the place though is the milk tea! It’s a 8 oz cup for $ 1.25 but it’s one of the best milk teas I have had outside of Hong Kong.
It is a nice balance of milk and tea (duh it’s a milk tea) but what I mean by that is you can taste both components while not being too sweet and having tons of flavor.
Delicious!

Dan taats, better known as egg custard tarts, are my favorite here. That’s right, I prefer the ones here over the ever so famous Golden Gate Bakery.
First off, allow me to explain myself. I hate egg custard tarts.
I know, who the hell am I right?
The crusts are generally made with tons of shortening. Consuming flaky lard isn’t really one of my favorite things to do, so uhh yeah. I tend to stay away from those bad boys whenever I have dim sum.
At Bread of Life, the crust is more of a cookie consistency similar to a shortbread. I definitely prefer this. The egg custard itself is also muuuuuch smoother and silkier than the usual egg custard tarts everywhere else. Think of a sweet silken tofu. Yeap, that’s the custard here.
Refering back to Ken K’s reviews, Bread of Life is a ministry (I think based out of Oakland?) that teaches the baking trade to Chinese immigrants. My parents told me this is true, and that this place has been getting a lot of flak from all the other Chinese bakeries in the area. Why? They’re stealing all the business away.
CHEAP pastries, made fairly well, and not to mention TASTY!
$ 5 for a dozen of the mini egg custard tarts. I’m a fan for life. I’ve gone twice already!

The Bread of Life Bakery is actually a ministry that trains Chinese immigrants (who probably speak very little to no English and likely need help to enter the workforce) in baking, bread and buns making, and sells them at very affordable prices. The profits probably go back into the church, as well as operating costs, materials, training, etc. The immigrants at least have some alternate means to make a living (vs slaving away in construction, handymen duties, dry cleaning/​laundromat, food business etc). Most of them might come from some rural overcrowded village (like Taishan, the biggest demographic of Chinese from Southern China in SF) and might not have had much of an education or opportunity (most of them grew up on the farms, so they can smack a bitch if some one tries to stir up crap on a bus on their way to and from the dry cleaners/laundromat…remember Crane Fu North Face on the Muni a few years ago? RE$PECT), but try to seek a better life here.
So while BOLB is likely not a non profit even if somewhat close to being one, the good intentions are at the very least to be applauded and thus the extra star, even if the baked goods may be of mixed quality depending on what you get.
Sampled two items from this location, a small mini cupcake sized baked good, that had the consistency of a coconut cookie crumb exterior, with a soft mochi and red bean mildly chewy interior that was quite interesting.
The HK style egg tart was a cookie crust, and while I had to nuke it, it was quite delicate and light… which is good because some of these elsewhere can be major guilt bombs (aka a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips). And it doesn’t hurt the wallet or ego as much either.
There are a number of bakeries in Hong Kong called iBakery that are operated by the Tung Wah hospital group (I think that’s the name, guess it fell off Steve Jobs’s radar), where the group trains and hires people who are mentally and developmentally challenged/​with disabilities, a super rare generous thing to do in a society where people only care about themselves.
The only big difference here is that the baked goods from iBakery look very professional and delicious, they do cooked food as well as cookies, panna cotta. So I won’t expect BOLB to ever reach that level, and you shouldn’t either.
So please take this place and its offerings for what it is… just people helping others, even if the quality is nothing like the best bakeries in town (let alone «Hong Kong style», but already tastes a whole lot better than some of the crap in the Peninsula and the South Bay). Tho maybe I’ll stay away from pork buns.

Super cheap, and not bad tasting either! I’d say it’s pretty on par with a majority of other Chinese bakeries in the city. Definitely good if you’re strapped for cash, and I like that they come in these little boxes.
Tip: The hot dog buns tend to sell out early. :(I wish they made more! (It’s why I held off on the 5^th star.)
I should note that everything IS around $ 1 — so DON’T BE RIDICULOUS AND EXPECT IT TO BE EXTREMELY AWESOME AND START HAVING DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR. Seriously, I can’t believe some people get their panties in a bunch because it didn’t live up to their expectations…
Um. Newsflash: IT’S ONE DOLLAR. You get 3 pineapple breads/​3 hot dog buns/​6 mini dinner rolls/​etc. It’s pretty obvious to anyone with (working) common sense that they’re mostly trying to emphasize their quantity and not quality — which is a smart tactic considering today’s economy and the amount of people out there trying to stretch their dollar. Can’t really complain when you can eat lunch for $ 1.
If you’re expecting it to be
«OMGSOGOODWOWWOWWOWANDIT’SALLFORONEDOLLAR – HOLLA!!»,
then you’re setting yourself up. You have no one to blame but yourself for your own lack of common sense.
It’s like walking into a fast food joint *cough*McDonalds*cough* and getting upset that a burger from the dollar menu doesn’t taste like a gourmet burger from a fancy-​smancy restaurant. Really now.

I saw this place a couple time I walk by clement st. Last time I was with my mom on clement, she told me they had the same store in oakland and they probably are shipping the foods here to sell. Today I drop by to see what they have to sell. The choices are few and the prices are reasonable. At one glance you can see the whole store. I bought the half dozen egg tarts, the mini pork bun and the hotdog buns (package in 3, they come in 6 as well).
Came home and tried the food. The egg tarts are okay, the crust is like cookie crust, not the flaky crust of usual egg tarts. I like the hot dog buns, tastes pretty good. The hot dog itself was a bit salty for me. I havent try the mini pork buns yet but hope it tastes good.
I havent tried all the items there but would like to. Maybe next time I’m at clement st, I might just drop by here.

I totally don’t get the place at all.
It’s just a CHEAP BREAD.
Tasteless Cheap Bread.
Nothing else but a cheap bread and bbq pork in it.
It looks to me that the products here are all machine made.
I didn’t like them.
Make a ton of buns and selling cheap.
What else new?
The place is very clean, but that made me more suspicious getting BBQ Pork Bun.
It looks like a Kiosk, It doesn’t seem like they make those buns here.
There was a large TV monitor showing the buns and loud Chinese instructions out side on the side walk. I think that is too much. I don’t like it at all.
I got a 3 dollar box set include 6 SMALL dinner buns, 2 SMALL bbq pork buns, 2 SMALL hot dog buns and 2 pineapple buns. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Yes, It did sounds good but after my first bite, I was like WTF?
It is just pieces of Junk.
Tasteless CHEAP bread.
Lung Fung Bakery is a lot better.
It is 1823 Clement Street, between 19^th Ave & 20^th Avenue.
Wing Lee is better.
Good Luck Dim Sum is better
Good Mong Kok is better
Clement Restaurant is better.
I bet you that there are more, on the same Street.
The place sucks big time.
I don’t get it.
I don’t go back there again.

My dad has been telling me about this place since he first heard about them in Chinatown. Apparently all the other bakeries are getting upset he set up shop because he’s selling his buns at amazingly low prices and they’re actually better for you. He only has a limited amount of buns per day and when they’re gone, they close shop for the day. Word on the street is the owner’s philosophy is trying to get everybody to eat healthier with smaller portions and it reflects in his buns and he isn’t skimping on quality while he’s at it.
We came home with a $ 5 assorted box which entails 6 wheat dinner rolls, 4 pineapple buns, 4 pork buns and 4 turkey hot dog buns and a $ 5 box of egg tarts. Everything is a perfect portion for a little afternoon snack. They also had pineapple pork buns which I want to go back and try next time.
We’ve tried everything so far and it’s delicious. The dinner rolls were yummy. The pineapple bun is sturdy and has a good bite and the top doesn’t crumble on you as you eat it which is a plus. The pork bun is stuffed with a fair amount of the cha shu, flavorful and not fatty. I was surprised by the hot dog bun esp. because he used a turkey dog. Most Chinese bakeries use the saltiest, fattiest hot dogs around. And the egg tart was not too sweet and silky in texture. I think this place is going to be our go to bakery from now on. They don’t have too many options just yet but that won’t stop us.

When I woke up bleary-​eyed one morning and saw that a bakery was opening up downstairs from my home, only one thing came to my mind: That my diet was completely boned.
Luckily for me, I managed to stumble into their soft opening, and try some of their wares just as a line was forming:
Pineapple Baked Pork Bun: Very Good. The crisp sweetness of the pineapple topping atop a sweet, dense roll paired perfectly with the tangy barbeque sauce and lean pork. There was a bit of gristle present, but for fifty cents apiece, I have no room to complain too strenuously.
Hot Dog Bun: Very Good. While I’m in no position to test the claim that these buns contained Farmer John Turkey Dogs (among things that I am a connoisseur of, hot dogs are not one of them), the quality of the meat was certainly high enough quality, and complimented the fluffy bun they were contained in. An excellent value at 3 for one dollar.
Ambiance is minimal, with garish yellow walls and a small storefront to contain the swelling throngs that greeted me.
Welcome to the neighborhood!
Cash only.