Sun Light Bakery – Fresh made to order chang fen / cheung fan (Chinese steamed rice crepe) in Chinatown / LES

[Lau]

see full review with pics: www.lauhound.com

Sun Light Bakery is a small Cantonese bakery on East Broadway located on the far eastern part of Chinatown that borders the Lower Eastside. The bakery is a regular Cantonese bakery with decent baked goods. However, the real draw is that next door is a small snack shop that is part of the bakery that serves fresh made to order chang fen / cheung fan, which is a steamed Chinese rice crepe with various fillings you can choose. Typically, you see this dish at dim sum places. However, in Hong Kong there are places that will make it fresh for you. It’s much better fresh and when I saw they were serving it fresh, I got very excited. They have a variety of fillings you can get such as dried baby shrimp, fresh shrimp, beef, roast pork etc.

So far I’ve tried the beef, dried baby shrimp and the cha shao / cha siu (roast pork):
- Beef: The beef is different than the version you get at dim sum places, this is more small chunks of minced beef as opposed to the minced beef that fills up the middle. The chang fen is cut up and the lady will ask you if you want scallions and she will sprinkle diced scallions and cilantro on it (definitely recommend getting that). You then pour a dark, semi sweet soy sauce on it. This was quite good.
- Dried baby shrimp: same thing, but I liked it a bit better as I really like dried baby shrimp
- Cha shao / cha siu (roast pork): same thing, but I thought the cha siu wasn’t very good quality as it was a bit dried out although it still tasted pretty good overall

Overall, a solid place and if you’re in the neighborhood I recommend stopping in. Also, I recommend eating it immediately as it tastes much better.

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Happy Star Bakery
160-162 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002

[erica]

So I finally find out what those rice crepes are called..they are always my favorites on the dim sum menus. Ok--great tip. Do they have any seats? Is there any English at all, either written or spoken?

[Lau]

they don't have any seats as it's take out only but it is right next to seward park, i normally just eat them in front of the place

they've more recently translated the menu into english, i'm not sure if they speak english or not, but you could def get by through pointing as the entire menu is translated into english

[erica]

Ok, thanks. Pointing is good! Either to a menu or to someone else's plate.

[Pan]

Thanks for the rec. I often have occasion to be in that area.