Wan Shi Da Bakery & Cafe

I like the smoothies here, they’re more drink-​like than crushed ice and fruit like a lot of places. The baked goods are pretty good too. No weird smells or flavors.

RED BEAN BUN & TARO BUN ARE A STAPLE. I headed in after a bad experience at chiu quon and its cheaper here and the buns are way bigger (haha). The girl helping was really nice & descriptive. Buns were chewy and seemed fresh even though I went in around 6 at night.

Wandered into this bakery during a recent trip to Chinatown and I must say that I was quite disappointed. I probably feel this way because 85 degrees bakery in California has forever ruined my Taiwanese bakery experience… because nothing ever compares.
There was actually a decent selection of pastries and treats so we ended getting the shredded pork bun, coconut bun, ham and egg bun, mochi cake, and egg tart. The buns were all very stale and the egg tart was super bland. The only expectations I have for buns is that they are soft and chewy and for egg tarts to be sweet – none of those expectations were met which is why I gave two stars. The only thing worth a second thought was the mochi cake, cause let’s be honest, mochi is always delicious as long as it’s sweet and not dry.
The ladies who worked there were very friendly and you can tell it is definitely a mom and pop shop. It’s cash only so if you decide to go here, make sure you are prepared because they do not mess around when it comes to only accepting one form of payment.

The bakery is cash only but oh so cheap!
Every time I’m in Chicago — I make this a must-​visit destination.
Everything is always fresh and tasty. I highly recommend the BBQ buns (they’re the best I’ve ever had!!) and the pork and shrimp balls. But then again, you can’t go wrong with anything in there.
For a few bucks, you can have a huge meal and feel like you’ve eaten something awesome and not feel super heavy.

This is a bakery which is filed up with Chinese tasty. Absolutely, the price is very reasonable. The buns there is really recommended .For its rich milk incense.
With a coffee, it is a wonderful trip to Chinatown. It needs only 8 – 9 minutes from my apartment riding there. It is very convenient for my roommate & me. We would like t spend time to get some buns.

Wan Shi Da is one of my favorite shops in the entire city and the kind of place I wish everyone knew about. But it’s also the kind of place I wish I could keep a secret forever, because I really do NOT want to have to fight for the last winter melon cookie but am totally prepared to lay down the law if necessary.
This is a traditional Chinese bakery. English is not the primary language spoken here by either the employees or the majority of the patrons occupying the tables in the back, but that’s great! You’ll live.
Look elsewhere if you’re in need of a boutique bakery with cutesy cupcakes and frosting-​laden confections and whatnot. I’ma say it again: this is a traditional Chinese bakery. Lots of steamed buns with both sweet and savory fillings, moon cakes and fancy-​looking pastries. An impressive array of cheesecakes (including green tea and banana flavors) as well as spongy mango cakes and fried bread. There’s a decent dim sum menu and a list of bubble teas, though I haven’t tried any of the latter (yet). I prefer to wash down my food (the aforementioned winter melon cookies and BBQ pork buns are my favorites) with the fresh soymilk that they make in-​house.
Bring your dollars because they’re definitely cash only. Small bills will do you best, as they’re almost painfully cheap: On a good day I’ll splurge and spend FIVE WHOLE DOLLARS and get more than enough food for lunch and then some.

This is it. If you go to Chinatown in Chicago and want to visit a Chinese bakery and you have one place to go, go here.
1. It is cheap
2. It smells great outside
3. There were a bunch of salty old Chinese men hanging out in front of the store
4. OMG the buns were good
The following is how I picked this bakery. I know, in my other review I said that this was 1 of 2 places with Unilocal 4-​star ratings. But I found this the day before I looked. Anyway, the method to my madness:
1. Get city rental bike
2. Ride to Chinatown
3. Go up & down Wentworth St
4. Generally note what part of street smells best
5. Park bike, walk to that part of street
6. See where most of the Chinese people are
7. Go inside, pick 2 buns for breakfast
This seemed to work. In fact, I’m bummed that I went to the other bakery the nest day because this 1 was better. I got 2 buns:
1. Taro. I love taro. And this was a very good taro bun
2. Red bean with egg-​sugar topping. This was also very good
I ate too much, these buns are not light. For $ 1.90, how can you possibly go wrong? I mean, you can’t eat this stuff every day. But I was in town for less than 3 days. So I enjoyed myself as best I could.
Highly recommended.

i love getting the egg tarts and dou fu fa here!
several of the buns and the pork fried pastry is good too!
the owner is such a sweetheart too!

Good Chinese milk tea. Wonderful chinese iced lemon tea with plenty of fresh lemon. Pretty good dim sum, The owner works it herself. No frills environement — just good food.

Egg tarts are decent, but their cakes are a bit flavorless. My husband and I have also had better cheesecakes at other Chinese bakeries in the area. I also did not enjoy their coconut custards as much as I have with another bakery. I’d recommend St. Anna’s over Wan Shi Da anyday.

After attempting to purchase sesame balls after 7pm from 2 other nearby bakeries I finally found some here at Wan Shi Da Bakery. Don’t let the available supply fool you… I ordered 2 dan tats, 2 sesame balls, and a coconut bun and I was more than satisfied with my purchase. I know how some bakeries tend to lose their freshness over the course of the day but I was pleasantly surprised =) The sesame balls had a thicker chewy exterior which was delicious and the black bean paste inside felt like a sweet and hefty reward. The dan tats had a moist yet flaky crust I couldn’t help but devour. (Sometimes I don’t eat the crust if it’s too dry) I wished I had bought more… Last but not least the coconut bun was close to fantastic. The bun itself deserves a prize however the coconut inside was a bit sweeter and stickier than I prefer. Enjoying the bun made me curious about how a BBQ porn bun or dinner roll might taste here. The service was quick and the food was very cheap and appreciably fresh. I would certainly return and recommend.

I came here in a desperate frenzy after Chiu Quon (across the street) was out of dan ta (egg custard tarts). Luckily for me, there were plenty in the case, both large and small, and they were delicious.
Although we’d already bought some sweet buns and mochi balls from the first bakery we tried, we picked up a few here too. Dan ta is my favorite… but the coconut mochi ball with red bean filling was great too!

This is one of those little places that you have to walk in and at least buy one snack. They have a great selection and most of the things are pretty tasty. Try the egg tart!

good Chinese bakery with lots of selection, plenty of tables to sit at, and relatively functional restrooms.

Excellent little bakery, I always stop here after eating in Chinatown, but the best time to get the goods here is in the morning right after everything is baked. The mooncakes, coconut buns, well all the Chinese buns are best, their desserts are all good, I haven’t had a bad one yet. The buns make a nice bag lunch for a couple of days after purchase, as long as you can get at a microwave at work. By coincidence everyone in the store was looking at the Chinese characters tattooed on an idiot hipster chick who was in here shopping the last time I was here… the clerk told me that her tattoo said «zhōng shì go din,» which she translated as, Chinese baked goods. The White tattooed girl tried to explain to the Chinese workers that her tattoo said «The Truth Shall Set You Free,» adding a whole additional layer of irony. I think it’s a good thing to try different baked goods to eat, even if they are labeled in a language you can’t read, but not a good thing to get a tattoo on your body in a language you can’t read.

My sister went 2 days ago, early in the morning and picked up some rice crepes, har gow and shui mai. Also, 2 BBQ pork buns and a green tea cake roll.
Dim sum items were ok. Nothing great, but they must of gave my sister 2 orders of the rice crepes and there was only 1 soy sauce. Really?
Tried a little of the BBQ pork bun and the bread was too thin and the filling was a bit more mushy than I like.
So, I ended up trying a little of the green tea cake roll yesterday and it was the most driest thing ever! Disgusting! Oh, and it’s started to mold today already. Eek! Granted I don’t know is it because it was on the counter and it’s starting to get a bit hot, but eww!
I think I rather go to the bakeries across the streets from now on.

I think this is one of my favorite bakeries. Maybe it’s because I like saying the name of the place. I come here now to get my mom her winter melon cakes when I go back to visit my parents in Michigan. They are actually a little cheaper than Chiu Quon and they are just as good. I like the egg tarts here as well. They have the traditional asian pastry items and some other cakes that have mango and other flavors that are different and that I don’t see Chiu Quon having. They also have some refrigerated items as well, and seem to give discounts when you order a lot. When I ordered 10 I got a 10% discount. I feel like there is more of a customer appreciation here. I am always tempted to order excessive amounts of things here because I just want to try stuff. I always have to tell myself that I am on a diet to keep from doing so.

It was about that time in the afternoon when my blood sugars started taking a nose dive. I popped into the bakery to see what quick treat I could grab to give me a sugar fix. To me a lot of the cookies and pastries looked alike. So I ordered based on price. One butterfly cookie and one pastry with some kind of creamy filling for just under $ 1.50. The pastry turned out to have a weird orange apricot filling in it. It was overly sweet, the texture was strange and I don’t think I can say it tasted like apricot. Both had the same flaky texture and crumbled as I attempted to eat it. They weren’t very flavorful, except for that sugar filling… that was just sweeter than the dickens.
I would Chinatown is good for almost anything on the cheap, even odd bakery items… if you know what your ordering or have had it before you’ll be happy with your selection, otherwise it’s a blind eating adventure. I think I’ll stick to fortune cookies from here on out.

The ladies behind the counter at this bakery are friendly and very helpful. There’s at least one person that speaks English on the premise. This bakery have tons of inexpensive treats under $ 1 and frozen baos (buns) in the freezers you can also purchase.
I’ve ordered my birthday cakes here for the past two years. The sponge cakes are inconsistent. Instead of light and airy, sometimes they are more dense like angel cake. If you choose to have fruit filling, make sure to ask for fresh instead of canned.

Wan Shi Da has dim sum, a refrigerator full of steamed buns, baked buns, cakes, cookies, tapioca drinks, soy milk, etc. Though the variety is impressive, for some reason they don’t have any steamed chicken buns.
* Chinese sausage baked bun (90 cents): light golden bun, flat, soft, a bit tough, filled with a good amount of fatty Chinese sausage
* Steamed pork & vegetable buns: the filling had ground pork, napa cabbage, carrots, and wood ear. The filling was tasty and not too salty, but the bun dough was light and dry. The dough wasn’t elastic enough so it fell apart easily.
It looks old inside (your typical Chinese bakery). The cake slices looked like the best thing there.
Cash only.