Yi Mei Bakery

This is a Taiwanese Bakery and filled with rows of buns. My favorite is the croissant which is buttery and goes nicely with a cup of coffee. The sweet buns are popular like the red bean buns, and the coconut ones. Roast Pork Buns are different than the one’s that I am accustomed to. What’s up with the filling peeps?
Most of the fresh baked items made are by the window and displayed on trays.
I steer clearly away from the stuff on the counter. The egg custard did not look so great, and I definitely not get the Italian cookies– stick with Italian Bakeries for this.
They have Philippine Bun-​will have to give it a try the next time that I am there.

Been here a couple times and I recalled coffee and bun choices are quite average. I was in the neighborhood yesterday and again was disappointed by the bun I chose, the Char Siu Bao was a rough dough mix and filled with nothing more than a red line through the bun of red sugar and two to three crumbs of the Char Siu and they have the nerve to charge me for $ 1.30 for something unfresh.

This place sucks! In the morning they allowed homeless people hangout inside their shop harrasing their customers for a coffee. And in late afternoon their is a drug addict inside the bakeshop hanging out harrasing customers. And the employees dont do shit. They just laugh at you.

Yi Mei has at least two locations in NYC, and the erstwhile pink and purple neon lighting on the front window of the Flushing branch (
) was a recurring scene in my childhood. The quality of their breads and buns has dropped to 0, though. Now I can confirm that BOTH Yi Mei’s Flushing and Elmhurst branches are terrible!
Buy 2 get 1 free after 7pm. The peanut bun was extremely stale for only having sat out for a day (supposedly). I poked (gently!) at all of them and they were all dense and hardened.
The roast pork buns are legitimately awful across both locations, the worst I’ve ever had. There’s barely any filling, and what filling there is is horribly salty and looks to be just onions and food coloring.
I don’t know where they bake their buns, but that sort of consistency means it’s coming from a factory off-​site. All the buns are sealed in plastic instead of tucked in a wax envelope like many other bakeries. It’s clear they aren’t invested in having fresh products.
I love my Chinese bakeries and in all my many years on this earth, this is one of the worst I’ve ever tried. There are so many good eats and other options around for snacks! (Yi Mei isn’t cheaper than any of them.)

Cashier Speaks English which was convenient for me. Good customer service but this is a bakery and none of the breads really seemed appealing to me. The onion hotdog bun was probably the best thing I’ve gotten there.

Pretty good selection of inexpensive breads. My favorite is the scallion hot dog, and onion hot dogs. The loaf of cheese bread is good too. Definitely a good bakery to try. Oh make sure to ask for napkins because they never give it to you.

I wish we were able to rate from 0 to 5 because this place doesn’t deserve one star. Costumer service is sh*t and the cakes are dry. Simply go anywhere else.

It is cheap however the quality of their product can’t be guaranteed. Who would buy them if you saw the mold in their cake? Please be considered about your health. Hope there would not be the same problem in the future.

Awww. So disgusting. The cake is mold, and the cream is sour. Will not buy any more. And everyone see this comment don’t buy from the bakery too.

Post some pics of b’day cake with green mold… Very disgusting! Cream is sour too. No idea how long it’s been sitting there. Everyone here said will not shop there anymore…

Good display. Best part is that it was cheap. Got a quick fix (coffee and croissant) for $ 2. Seems like it caters to an asian community so would like to try some of the specialites. Stands out as a real good bakery in nyc!

A decent place to come get inexpensive bread and pastry; a lot of selections to choose from. I fine myself walking back and forth. looked around a few times then always end up getting the same things: Green Tea Pastry, Cheese Bread, Loaf of Whole Wheat Bread.
Buy 2 get 1 free after 7pm — for the gray trays. Cash only.

This store have been here for years.
I usually get their salted dinner roll– 6 to a pack.
standard Chinese bakery.

Everything tastes okay here. My favorites are the onion hot dog and the chicken roll, they are all $ 1 each. The green tea roll used to be so good but they started putting more food coloring because the color changed from bright grass green to darker green tea and it tasted bitter too. Now let’s move on to why I gave them one star:
1. Owner is borderline rude. I’m sure she didn’t mean to be rude but she does have a «It’s my store so if you don’t like it, feel free to leave» attitude. Woman, a smile goes a long way and when you have customers entering your store, you better be nice instead of ignoring them.
2. I understand that this is not a coffee shop and service is non-​existent BUT when there’s a line of customers, you and your staff should at least be courteous enough to drop everything you are doing to help speed up the check out process. I always come in the AM before going to work and the fact that there’s only one cashier taking coffee orders and ringin the bills while two others aren’t helping bugs me. It’s the AM, we are all on the way to work, you need to work fast!!!
3. This is the most disturbing part even more than the fact that they added food coloring in their green tea roll cake: their sanitary grade. As of this writing they only got a C from the Dept of Health. How bad is a C? I don’t know. BUT about a month or so ago they got completely SHUT DOWN for a week for sanitary (or pest?) issue! And even after that, they still haven’t learned their lesson and could only pass a C grade?! Worse, they try to conceal the C grade sign by moving it to the top corner of their door where it’s less visible to people.
4. They do NOT make their bread in-​house. I saw a big truck parked in front of their store with guys unloading loaves of bread into the store.
Go buy your bread elsewhere, guys.

Yum! All the buns appear in cute little wicker baskets. They are wrapped in plastic and twinkling. I walked in to buy a ham & egg sandwich w/​lettuce, tomato, and American cheese. Note: Chinese style sandwiches do not have overwhelming portions of ham, egg, or anything I mentioned. It is meant for like a light snack. I also decided to procure a cha siu bau (bbq pork bun) to wash down my coffee. This is a sweet bun, not just savory. There is a deal that if you come after 7 pm, that there is a buy 2 get one free deal. Oh and when I went around 5:50 pm, the staff speaks English and Chinese.

Not as terrible as the other review. First they got an A from our dept of health. Does that mean that they are actually clean? You make that decision.
Also, they have a good enough selection for the size of the store. The breads were fresh and everything is bought inside plastic.
It is a standard bakery and they don’t cost as expensive as the fay dat counterpart by a difference of ten to twenty cents. So I’m giving them four stars in order match out the one star below in order to average then out to what they really are.
This store is a standard three star.

Coconut cream bread my favorite

When I was in the neighborhood for work I would stop by to pick up dessert for a dinner party or to share with family since authentic Chinese pastries aren’t easily found on the upper east side of Manhattan. It was disconcerting to see plastic-​wrapped fish and chicken sandwiches sitting out on trays, un-​refrigerated, but I steered clear of those and instead sampled the red bean buns, taro bun, raisin & cream pastry, chestnut and plum flaky pastries, and the green tea roll cake. All were buttery and delicious, inexpensive, and not too sweet.

Yi-Mei’s has been around for quite some time now in Elmhurst, Queens. It use to be owned and operated by Taiwanese people. I’m not too sure if Taiwanese people still run it but back in the day, this bakery would easily get 4 – 5 stars. Their bread smelled amazing. Rich, buttery, and tasteful. Today, it’s so-​so. I would say, they still have the best buns and bao’s on Broadway in Queens but it’s nothing compared to the bao’s from Taiwan.
Verdict — Looking for cheap breakfast? Buy a dozen bao’s, you can’t go wrong with cheap bao’s for breakfast.

Their sweet raisin bread, sweet cheese bread and even plain white bread are fantastic! If you’ve never tried Chinese white bread, give it a whirl — -it is denser than the white Wonder bread I was used to from childhood. It makes fantastic French Toast! They also sell a little six pack of rolls that have a pocket of butter in the center that are incredible. Very inexpensive, go and try some of the PRE packaged treats… you can try one coconut roll or one hot dog bread.
. I know that a lot of Unilocalers have rated them very poorly based on their cakes, so please keep in mind that my review is based totally on their breads which are consistently fresh and even warm out of the oven. I am not a big fan of Chinese style sponge cakes which is what they offer here.
However, if you love bread, this place is a carbohydrate lovers Utopia!