Cake!

It was a friend's birthday the other day. So we had cake. I love cake!

The best cake in Chinatown is from a place on Stockton Street. It is crowded and busy and people bustle in and out. They have a very wide selection of mooncakes, and they are also well-regarded for their egg tarts and little custard pies. But they are best at cake.


永興餅家茶餐廳
The AA Bakery and Cafe
1068 Stockton St. San Francisco, CA 94108
415-981-0123

That's pronounced 'wing hing beng kaa cha tsan-teeeeeeng!'
It means 'Eternal Prosperity Bakery and Tea-Cafeteria'.


It's fun sitting there and snarfing down something sweet with a big cup of milk-tea while watching aunties pushing and shoving at the counter, and the tourist people coming in, looking lost and baffled for a few moments, before sort of drifting out in a daze.

Folks, it's all affordable. So what if you don't know what it is. How hard is it to figure out that curry roll is savory, egg tart is sweet, and anything that looks like a cookie probably IS a cookie?
Yeah, a pineapple bun looks strange. Try it. Fifty cents really gonna break the bank?


But their cakes are superb! Best fruit chunks, angle food layers, and cream filling combinations in all of Chinatown. And they are artists, doing very beautiful icing sculpture too.

It isn't a real birthday celebration unless there's a cake from AA.

So how old IS he? About fifty five? Sixty?
He still LOOKS vibrant and vigorous - must be all that rich sweetened butter cream filling his joints. And the fruit. Fruit is healthy.