McGarden Bakery

This place is the best. It has the tastiest buns and the nicest people running the bakery. It’s also very clean. I started coming here when I happened to look up the health rating of the other bakery we went to (very low) and then compared it to this place. (Now you can see the ratings on Unilocal’s site.) Once I saw how clean this place was, I switched immediately. The buns here are amazing. We buy from them every week.

Why is it called McGarden? hahahaha. This is a pretty good spot for tasty treats. And their goodies are surprisingly inexpensive. It’s a good place to chill since it is usually not very crowded. The people who work here are very nice, and some neighborhood people take advantage of that by being annoying jerks in the store. They could do a better job of labeling their products.

Don’t let that Irish name fool you. McGarden Bakery offers a tasty selection of Chinese buns and drinks.
If you’re looking for authentic Hong Kong milk tea, find it here. Tea rather than sweetness is the forward flavor of the drink. Interestingly enough, you can taste both evaporated and condensed milk in their milk tea. This makes for even less sweetness in the drink.
The dan taat (egg tart) had a light and flaky crust that held together well. The filling was well-​balanced combination of egginess and light sweetness with a perfect custard consistency — not too runny or solid.
My favorite Chinese bun, bo lo bao (pineapple bun), was warm and fresh. The bread was light and soft, and the sweet topping stuck to the bread well instead of falling off or crumbling.
If you don’t have to grab and go, there’s ample space for dining in. The interior feels spacious, and there are several tables and chairs. The free wifi makes it a convenient spot to study or work on your laptops, as well.
McGarden is right at the busy intersection of Geneva and Mission with several MUNI stops, so you can grab a quick snack or drink while waiting.

The bakery offers tasty sweet pastries as well as some meat filled buns. All of it tastes quite good and they have Hong Kong style milk tea at a very reasonable price. The buns are not of European quality, instead are very American. But that is quite alright.
I had two sweet tarts a bun with ham and egg as well as a warm pork bun. Call it breakfast of champions for a person suffering from jet lag and looking for a place in the area that was open at 6am.
Overall, I played 6.20 USD for my meal. Quite reasonable I must say.

Nice spot for a bakery. I started feeling a little hungry while waiting for the bus right in front. I came in, bought two egg tarts — they were delicious. A bottle of water — good substitute to coffee and soda.
The egg tarts were 60 cents each and the bottle of water was $ 1. Average pricing of pastry items at most bakeries are around 40 cents to 90 cents.
Friendly staff member on duty, clean and spacious bakery which are all good to know. This is something customers look for patronizing a dining establishment. Positive first time experience so I’ll be back.
Free Wi-​Fi available — props to this amenity!
Parking: Mostly street /​metered /​residential parking!

Located right on mission, this place is so convenient when passing by to get a quick bite of anything! They were very friendly and cheap! Feeling sweet, salty, or maybe both? They got you covered offering a wide variety of breads filled with delicious goodness! Definitely stopped here at least three times during my visit just passing by or waiting for my bus and surely didn’t break any piggy bank of mine!

Cake = good.
Baked goodies = yum. Pineapple custard bun, coconut macaroon, banana cake
HK Milk Tea = piping hot and awesome!
Prices = cheap. Bring cash though.
Service = friendly.

Can’t get enough of their Napoleon, those crunchy walnuts sandwich between filling and dense cake, and flaky crust. Don’t care how many calories, so good! Their egg tarts are pretty good too.

Came here Friday at around 630 to buy a last minute birthday cake! They didn’t have one with fresh fruits so they made one for us right away, which was really nice of them to do! Their smallest size cake was $ 19, not too much icing and not too sweet. The only thing I wished was the inside filling to also be fresh fruits, but other than that, great cake! Staff here is super super friendly, they could have said they didn’t have any cake or just sold us the one they had there. Definitely coming back here!

This bakery has a cheerful feel to it inside. The tables are new, and everything is clean. It has a light, airy feel inside. The service is VERY friendly, and genuine, which I liked a lot when I was having a bad day. The baked goods are not bad, I liked the dinner roll that came free with their coffee. Coffee is strong and smooth. Pastries are hit and miss, the walnut muffin was simple and and sweet. The chocolate chip cookie was completely ordinary. I did like this place and will remember it as a bright spot in my Geneva/​Excelsior days, lol.

I’ve tried a few items from here so far and wasn’t too impressed. The amount of filling in the curry beef bun (.80) and the BBQ pork (1.00) was lacking and tasted just OK. I like their Hong Kong milk tea, it’s pretty strong. Clean and spacious inside, and they advertise free wi-​fi. The lady who’s usually there is nice! I wanted to like this place but I’ve had better… I haven’t tried their sweets, perhaps I’ll have more luck there.

Would give it no stars if i could but apparently I don’t have the option. I thought this bakery was pretty good until today. I’ve purchased the lemon cake roll at this place for a few times already. I know it is $ 3.50 so I obviously don’t have to ask. Today when I went the lady, which I looks like the manager because I see her every time I go, charged me $ 4.50. I asked again how much it was because she didn’t give me any change and even the other worker there told me $ 3.50 when I asked. But guess what this lady told me, I gave you a big one. Here let me get you a smaller one. I could care less for my dollar change so I left and told her no. There is no small or big one. They’re all packed in the same size box and are pretty much the same size. But if we’re going to go into details then let me tell you, the «bigger» one she gave me this time was smaller than the other ones I’ve purchased before. It’s not the extra dollar that I’m bitter about but that is not how you do business. Sad. Will to be going back. Rather spend the money elsewhere.

Ive never personally went in there, my mom is the one always buying buns from them, but I pass by it everyday and from the outside it looks like a nice bakery,
Sadly to say, I was not impressed by anything that my mom have brought home. My mom have bought quite a variety of buns and other treats from them since they’ve opened and the only thing I think is decent is the BBQ pork bun, but I still just think its just alright, I’ve had better.
This place tries to tweak the general ingredients or use other substitutions and I really don’t think it’s working out with them. All I taste when I eat their food is nothing. its completely bland
Not loving this place at all.

The name McGarden sounds like an Irish bakery. Does it?
But I won’t talk smack about the Chinese bakery’s name. Because I think the new bright light bakery, which has opened in the beginning of 2012, have much improved the image of Geneva & Mission Street.
On my debut of the 2 months old bakery, I had the Yellow pudding bun, and Banana flavor sweet roll with a strong cup of coffee, which totaled to $ 2.50. This is not a bad and inexpensive treat. The pudding bun had a lopsided filling, but still a yummy bun. The banana roll has a powdered sugar topping and a sweet banana swirl filling. $ 1.50 for a 12oz coffee, but STRONG and POTENT! My Treat:
As I was enjoying my treat I was chatting with the friendly husband and wife owners. Also I took advantage of the WiFi usage complimentary from the bakery. You don’t see free WiFi in many Chinese Bakeries. Sign:
Finally a really solid Chinese Bakery in the area. And I will definitely make every effort in coming back. With my daughter’s birthday coming up, I might buy a birthday cake from them this year. «I can’t wait!»
I also can’t wait for the area to improve with the new Chinese bakery and hopefully more similar businesses to build upon.

WOAH what happened?!
I just came back from there and bought more of those Walnut cookies plus walnut pound cake and some coconut macaroons (I believe is what they are) and WHAT THE. HAIL.
The Walnut cookies taste more like whipped eggs more than anything, the coconut macaroon tasted salty and kind of fried-​chicken-​y (for SOME reason O_​_​_​_​_​O). I haven’t gotten to my pound cake yet but I just wanted to say that this bakery is quite inconsistent with their pastries and flavors!
I kinna do wanna one-​star this place but my first experience and first bites of their product 3 days ago was so good that it deserves more than one-​star. HOWEVER, WWOOOOOWW…
I really didn’t expect their product to fluctuate in flavor consistency like that. maybe it depends on who baked it /​-​: If that’s the case, then I don’t wanna risk my money there anymore if I have to be in correct timing with the good baker as opposed to just trusting the bakery to give me a good product all the time.

This brand new bakery is a great addition to the neighborhood, serving some of the freshest, and most delicious Chinese pastries, along with friendly service.
There are plenty of seats in the big café, my favorite item of this bakery is the egg custard, not too sweet, and the puffy pastry surrounding the egg center is crispy and flaky, definitely not the cookie dough kind.