Wicker basket also has a reasonable selection of own cooked breads. The wholemeals are recommended. But they tend to sell out early in the day.

There are at least 2 in Kunming. Beichen and near KIA

I vote for French Cafe and Slice of Heaven for best real bread.

For "Chinese-style bread" Just Hot is the best of the bunch. Their maple croissants are a great deal at only 2 yuan each. Bread Story also has decent danishes.

The soft fluffy bread you get at supermarkets and most large bakeries is about as far from real bread as you can get; it is a shame that it has become the standard by which most people measure the bread they buy.

This is how it is manufactured:

www.allotment.org.uk/[...]

At a handful of small bakeries in kunming bread is still made properly using only flour, water, salt and yeast. If you live near one, you'd be mad not to use it.

At As You Like we buy locally produced, stone ground flour and make all our bread by hand. Bread that has been cared for at every stage of the process is better bread, no question.

I gave up on good bread in China several years ago. I make my own just like Barbara says. In fact I only use imported flour, yeast and salt. Only the water is Chinese, but it is all treated and filtered. My bread tastes great, and I know exactly what's in it. It is easy to do by yourself, but done the right way, is not cheaper......just WAY better.

rainer(germany) will start to sell his bread"the best bread in kunming"in moondog on sunday from 6 pm.if you are interestet,order a loaf by sending a e-mail to moondogkunming@hotmail.com.he has 2 kinds,half brown and full grain,each loaf is 30 kuai.don't look any futher this is the best bread in kunming

There is going to be a royal rumble of all bread makers in Kunming.

First up is French cafe wielding dual bagguettes. They have good reach and once opened, quite sharp edges. Their snarky waitresses form the vanguard of their attack spitting looks as dangerous as their bread strikes (i.e. not as bad as everyone says). Slice of heaven will come into play with some slightly denser breads, hollowed in the middle and worn like boxing gloves. Barbara is quite a formidable opponent, she might look like your mum, well she hits like her too. Yonder we see the Chinese entrants, there are many of them, but prefer to keep their distance from the stronger bread of the westerners. They will be throwing their bread slices from afar, hoping to blind their enemies with sugary crumbs, we don't give them much of a chance.

Wait! In walks Omgiri and Jia Jia from As you like. Their bread is stone ground, but for the fight they have left some grinding stones in their bread. This might get ugly as they fight in a pair watching each others back and the edges of the baking slices on their bread are razor sharp and capable of being thrown.

But wait, the Germans. Their bread is thick, dense and so heavy they can barely lift it above their head. Rainer has made a special batch for the fight, with a hole clear through the middle. Enlisting help from fellow German compatriots at Metro, into these holes will be slid Metro baguettes. The result is wicked looking bagguette hammers. However the weight of the hammer head may prove to be the baguettes downfall as it may be crushed under such German engineering.

Who will win? You can find out when the rumble begins tomorrow night, 2am on Wenlin Street. Live footage will be streamed to O'Riellys so we can watch the glutenny carnage with a beer in hand.

r.e. "rainer(germany) will start to sell his bread"the best bread in kunming"", it had better be the best bread in the world since the price is about five American dollars in a country where the same price should get you a full meal and drinks at a decent restaurant!

Like Bucko said, in the end best to learn to make your own. My wife can make better bread than any of these places, but it is a lot of work and so it is not a regualr thing. I have to settle for the wutang mian bao (sugar free bread) at the little bakery near where i live for 6 RMB for a sliced loaf.

A while back i almost posted to this thread when I bought a baguette at Paul's on Wen Hua Xiang and was very happy with it. It was soft and I had no complaints. When I went back to get some more the loaves I got were, again, stall and so hard as to be inedible. Even the girl at the counter told me "these are hard, foreigners usually complain when they are hard". I bought them anyway.

I'm tired of stale, hard expensive bread. I have simply given up. And you should try places for yourself of course, but all the places mentioned here are hit and miss at best. Maybe good bread on Monday, but stale old bread on Tuesday at the same price. I have never had good bread at the overrated french Cafe. Never, not even on the sandwiches on the menu. The bread is hard and stall. I ate at plenty of French sidewalk cafe's in Seattle and never had such atrocious bread. Not once. Some people will say it is the best in China, (in this thread someone says so, and says the bread there is as good as at any Parisian cafe he has eaten at... don't buy that malarkey) but you begin to wonder who the hell is saying this stuff. The owner's friends or family? The own himself? That certain laowai type who has to defend Chinese businesses against the cruel criticism if spoiled foreigners who don't like being ripped off? Look, if you like hard bread that rubs the roof of your mouth raw as you eat and don't mind paying too much for that experience then by all means go the French Cafe.

At Paul's the bread was in a bag and you could actually squeeze it, but at the French Cafe you point and get what the girl gives you. You cannot touch test it. Good luck.

"My wife can make better bread than any of these places,"

That be fightin' talk. Bring it.

Haha. well, I'm saying my wife's bread is the best in the world, just better than french Cafe's :)

do I need some special card for the metro here? can you give me the street where that fish market is? thanks!