Metro card needed?
Yes and no.
It is technically a wholesaler. Cards are fairly easy to get with some form of business ID you can usually apply.

However a card is not usually needed, you can ask for a temporary number if you 'forget your card'. You then use this number to check out. This may depend on an experienced person being on reception. Occasionally they have a clampdown and you need a card. People have been caught out.

Through trial and error, I found out about adding extra salt, reducing the amount of yeast, and adding more liquid...

Excellent article about dealing with high altitude and bread making...voices.yahoo.com/[...]

Thanks ET. Good link, I will put it in the other bread thread as it is useful.

Just tried something called a country loaf from Just Hot. The look and texture were like real bread. Except that they have added ......perfume! A rosy scent and taste. Is there no atrocity the Chinese will shrink from inflicting on that simplest of staples - a loaf of bread?

The croissants are the only thing worth buying from this chain.

It's all about the looks. Bakeries are loath to make good bread.

Good or no good is often a question of personal feeling.
But as a French man, I definitely vote for French Cafe whose bread can really be compared with many good bakeries anywhere in France.

I think you may be right there Henri. The locals would probably think that French bread doesn't last more than a few hours before it goes stale, and is not sweet.
Whereas local bread will keep for up to two weeks and is oh! so sweet!
;-)

Everybody saying chinese can't do good bread forgets that Hui, Salar and Uighur can be considered chinese. There's good, cheap muslim naan bread available here and there all over Kunming; one place is the halal restaurant at the train station, along the road where people walks out after having arrived by train. I'll take muslim bread rather than overpriced western bread any time of the week, though sure, sometimes I do get a baguette craving that's hard to satisfy (french cafe might sometimes do the trick, though, their tuna baguette is hai keyi). Sometimes, the chinese chain bakeries might actually stock decent bread; the one around the corner of the cinema on Wenlin jie have okay baguettes and a small selection of other stuff that doesn't taste like cardboard, sugary chemical horror.

is there any new information on where to get good bread in Kunming? ... how about German bread?

Covid has taken a toll on small bakeries, like many other small shops that have fallen indefinitely.

Good news is Kunming bread-making techniques have evolved over the past decade. Even one particular Jiahua (Joy) Bakery on 光华街 (50 meters west of McDonald's) near Zhengyi Fang are rocking a variety of commendable European bread in taste and texture to compete with Just Hot. Supposedly this Jiahua branch hired a prolific baker from Taiwan to teach the local crew here.

Hema (Hippo Supermarket) bakery at B1 of 顺城 (ShunCheng Shopping Center) consistently churn out multigrain wheat-rye-oats w/ sesame and seeds resembling German bread.