Zhao Mah Bakery

Passing by this bakery one may not feel inclined to go in let alone try their pastries. However, the hole in the wall look hides the fact that they do a great job with their food.
What I like about this place is that, to compete with the many other nicer and more well known bakeries in Chinatown that they price their items less (hence not much money was spent sprucing up the place).
They other thing that separates them from the competition is that they sell things you don’t normally find elsewhere such as freshly made rolled rice noodles (usually still warm when you buy them), fresh «fun goh» (sorry, don’t know the English translation), and a few very Cantonese home-​style cookies that I grew up eating.
The more typical bakery items are good such as their pineapple buns (the cream-​filled ones are especially good), sponge cakes, and others.
One of my go-​to places when I’m in the area!

This never ending winter has me craving carbs like a bear getting ready to hibernate so I sought out one of my favourite carb-​laden treats, a coconut bun from Zhao Mah Bakery. The bun is made out of a glossy sweet bread dough, lightly dusted with sesame seeds and stuffed full of a buttery sweet coconut paste. As if that isn’t enticing enough, they only cost $ 2 for 6 of them!
This bakery is super small and doesn’t have a huge selection but the few things that I have ventured a try have all been very tasty. Given how comparatively inexpensive Zhao Mah is, a few speculative purchases aren’t too risky.

Tiny bakery in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Takes up about a half of a regular store space. Despite skepticism about the smallness of this place, I decided to give this spot a try.
Zhao Mah has a typical selection of Chinese baked goods that are reasonably priced. Most of the other bakeshops do carry steamed buns, though the varieties offered at each are not always the same. Came across a pack of vegetable and dried scallop steamed buns here that caught my eyes. Picked up a bag for $ 6.
Either the bag was located in the wrong place, which is plausible due to the small space, but it turns out the buns that I got was a mix of vegetable and pork. If it is really the right item, must be they were going for dried scallop flavor or something. Dried scallops are quite expensive, so it was probably too much to expect a revelation here. Anyways, it was a decent bun that is great for a steaming piece of breakfast.
I stand by my saying that I have not visited a Chinatown Vancouver bakery that I did not like. Though with so much gloriousness, I would not buy from just one place. Visit and pick out the goods that you like and move on to the next one. In that regard, Zhao Mah is worth a visit. You might come across something worthwhile here.

What Zhao Mah lacks in size it makes up for in diversity. Despite having the width of a small alleyway and the depth of a large flatbed, this bakery offers a very diverse selection of cheaply priced baked goods. From their fresh steam buns to the oddly named (but normally delicious) Tropical Fruit Triangles, they have lunch and desert ready, for under $ 2 an item!
I normally visit them for one of their four flavours of steam bun in the early afternoon and would recommend any but the chicken. Occasionally I try one their baked oddities, like their tuna rolls or their tiny «pizzas». Along with the greasy ‘Chinese donuts” and crab cakes, this makes for an unforgettable food excursion, fortunately not in a bad way.