Lucky Bakery and Cafe in San Francisco, CA: A Review

Lucky Bakery and Cafe is a godsend to Visitacion Valley. Just to give you an idea of what a food desert this little area around the Cow Palace is, you can count the entirety of food sources on your two hands, and it isn't an impressive list. You've got one little corner grocery, McDonalds, Taco Bell/KFC, a pizza place, a Chinese place, a vastly overpriced convenience store frequented by thugs, a decent sit-down Mexican restaurant, and that's about it.

So Lucky Bakery and Cafe fills a number of voids, and does it both affordably and with good quality. The interior is basic, but clean and pleasant with about ten tables or so, and they even offer free WiFi, which I'm pretty sure can't be found anywhere for at least half a mile in every direction.

It's basically a combination of an actual full-service bakery, coffee-and-donut shop, breakfast and lunch grill, and bahn mi joint. For breakfast (or just an anytime snack), you can get your standard range of donuts and pastries along with cheap but effective Folgers-caliber coffee. There's also some pretty good toasted bagels with your standard range of toppings. You can get eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, pancakes and french toast off the grill, or a pretty awesome (and large) breakfast burrito for only $4 that features egg, shredded potatoes, cheese, salsa and your choice of meat. They even do fruit smoothies and more advanced coffee drinks such as Vietnamese iced coffee and cappucino.

On the lunch end, there's a nice variety of foodstuffs to order. You've got grill options here with hamburgers, cheeseburgers, bacon cheeseburgers, and Philly cheese or chicken steaks for around $5-6 with a side of fries included. While I like their cheesesteak - mostly because of the tasty roll they put it on - the burgers are a little undersized and unimpressive, and you barely get a handful of fries in either case. That's the one minor weakness in the lineup. Better choices are pork chops, pho, and various bahn mi (Vietnamese sandwiches). They also do chicken and fish katsu, which I'm torn on. The katsu and dipping sauce are good and the portions are generous, but the sides consist of plain steamed broccoli, plain steamed rice, and the blandest macaroni salad I've ever tasted (it tastes like they didn't even use any mayonnaise in it at all.)

Then there's the bakery portion. The star of the show here is a wide range of various Asian-style buns for less than a buck each. Worthy of note are the hot dog buns (mildly sweet glazed buns with a hot dog cut up into peices and baked in), pork buns (sweet pork mash-up with jelly inside a plain bun), butter cream buns, even ham and egg in a bun for quick breakfast on the run. They also make loaves of fresh bread here that are supposed to be pretty good, but I wouldn't know because apparently they only make a small amount each day and they sell out fast first thing in the morning. Judging by the rolls they use for the cheesesteaks and the bahn mi, however, I'm guessing they live up to the reputation. You can also order full-sized cakes to be made for special occasions and whatnot ... they usually have a few slices of different types for sale as well.

The selection is basic, but they do just about everything on the menu pretty well, and some items are downright awesome. Add in the affordable prices and you have a real winner.