Let them eat cake in a city without ovens

i will gladly pay more for Paul-quality bread... especially if nobody yells at me while i am buying it.

The Portman bakery has always been pretty reliable, too (but expensive).

Shanghai has come a long way, but we still have to take whatever we can get. Beijing only has a few places for good bread, and not as good as the spots mentioned here.

@1:

Just out of curiousity, which of Shanghaiist's recent reviews did you think were written by "stingy students"?

Hungry for a Wonderbread and mayonnaise sandwich, Mullet?

"I'd write, but English was my native language."

Ponder please.

Baguettes and imported flour aside, Paul is pretty expensive.

Take flour and water and bake it into bread - 3 kuai

Add a French man to stir the mix, triple the price.

Dan, I have nothing against Shanghaiistisements :-) Actually we visited many of the locations you guys posted perviously. But you have to admit, that in recent months the quality of reviews and overall quality of the posts went down, and most recently the reviews were written by "stingy students" who will get broke by buying baguettes for rmb9...

Again, i know nobody is getting rich of this, and it's damn difficult to find skilled expats in shanghai to do the writing these days. I'd write, but English was my native language.

Actually, forget it. i was just trolling.

p.s. Rebekah, good job, but try to make the articles less artistic and more straight to the food. :-) Going to that shop, tasting the food and comparing it to what we know "from home" might actually improve this post. I've been frequently to Taiwan, and I fail to see how Taiwan made "sweet sponge bread" is better than any other "sweet sponge bread" in china.... but hey, i may give it a try.

I'd like to add that I don't find Paul expensive, either -- but that's probably just because I am filthy rich off of all of those Shanghaiistisements.

85℃ is open 24 hours a day. That is a key point that was not mentioned. I would love to see hot baguette stands become street food. Now that would be innovation.

Call me silly, but I really enjoy City Shop's banana bread.

I'll chime in about Paul not really being that overpriced.

And add to it one plea: if we're going to have Hong Kong style bakeries - with the pork floss and hot dog buns (cheung zai bao) why can't we have a real Hong Kong bakery? You know .. . Maxim's? Man, I'd kill for a real good pineapple bun.

Putting the picture of the Banh Mi stand on the front of Shanghaiist, and then talking about baguettes or something like that, is a really cruel trick to play on your readers.

Let's not forget Yamazaki! They make a mean baguette.

You beat me to it santo. Damn you.

Paul is overpriced? If you can't afford to pay 9 RMB for a beautiful, chewy baguette that's fine - you probably don't deserve one. But for a bakery that imports their flour and other ingredients, holds high-rent locations and has great quality control, I think their bread is pretty affordable. Desserts too (though the quiche does seem a shade extortionate). If you're talking about egg tarts, or breads made with local flour, dribbled with kewpie mayonnaise and garnished with a fluttering crown of pork floss, you're confusing apples with oranges here.

Even better than Paul, I think, are the baguettes by Daniel (i think that's his name), sold at Feidan and served at Franck, an 'expensive' French restaurant that is good by virtue of good ingredients.

The supermarket in the basement of Grand Gateway also has surprisingly decent baguettes.

Anyone got any other surprises?

@santochino, this was a Shanghaiistisement, so that "other" vendor needs to be put in a bad light, for example by being labeled as "overpriced".

i'm curious about the comment i see here of paul being over-priced, and a shared sentiment with the author that i've started to pick up recently.

have you ever bought a baguette from them? the last one i bought was ¥9. how in the world is that overpriced? the first (and last) baguette i bought from bread talk was ¥10. do you really need someone to explain the difference in quality between the two? and when paul inevitably raises their prices to account for the rising price of ingredients, they'll still be underpriced, not overpriced.

sure, maybe you don't want to shell out ¥30-40 for a raspberry or strawberry tart - they're not an everyday breakfast item. but consider the price of importing the frozen fruit they use in them. consider the price of butter. consider that they use michel cluizel chocolate in their pastries, which runs neck and neck with Valrhona (also spotted in their pastry kitchen) as one of the world's best chocolates. and that's in pastries that cost less than ¥20. what more do you want?

i fail to see why it's overpriced. it just seems like an easy, and thoroughly misinformed, snipe at them.

and, no, i don't work for them.

Has egg tarts, buns with garlic, bacon, cheese, bread and butter pudding, anything to do with good bakery? Where is the good bread?

I totally agree about the city without ovens. It's driving me crazy.