Van's Bakery — Restaurant in Westminster

We just got married. There were so many things to be stressed out about: Flowers, Alcohol, Decorations, Guests lists, etc. What didn't we have to stress out about? The CAKE.

Service (5/5) The entire process was painless. We arrived and booked/designed our cake the same day. The cake was delivered on time and there wasn't any need to follow up because of a late delivery. They coordinated a meeting with us to make our wedding cake arrangements with someone who spoke English, was very communicative, and easy to understand. I believe she was the owner of the bakery. When we arrived, we had the option to begin the cake design from the ground up. We chose a base cake to determine the shape and the amount of tiers (based on expected guest count). Then we got to a blank pad where we were able to determine all of the accents. We added a ribbon and real flowers.

Decor (3/5) This place was definitely a quick to-go style bakery. It wasn't designed to be aesthetically pleasing, but more-so designed to be capable of baking high volumes of pastries for pick up. Compared to Lee's Sandwiches or 85 degree bakery, it's a different experience. There are no places to sit down. The places is relatively small and gets crowded/loud very quickly.

The target audience for this bakery is looking to walk in, grab some baked goods, walk to the register to pay, and then go home. That's how this bakery was designed.

Food (4/5) They have a wide variety of choices for baked goods. They had macaroons, waffles, and moon cakes, but they also carried boba drinks. The macaroons were available in over 20 different flavors and were ultra sweet. I don't know if they are supposed to be this sweet, but I loved it. I have a big sweet tooth and although there wasn't a lot of depth in the flavors, it was definitely satisfying.

Price (4/5) The prices were very reasonable. For the wedding, we ordered 300 macaroons, and a 5-tiered cake. Adding flowers to the cake and the delivery to the venue was an additional charge. The macaroons were $1.25 each because of the volume that...

Ordered an 8 inch moka cake for pickup at 6, but then had to change it to noon, and they were able to make it happen! The cake itself was perfectly light and fluffy. Not too sweet. I think the cream to cake ratio was a bit high for me. I would have preferred more actual cake than buttercream. The Harbor Blvd. Vans bakery store definitely puts less cream

Speaking of buttercream, I would recommend letting the cake sit out at room temp for a bit before slicing and eating. We ate it straight out of the fridge and the cream was a solid mass. Couldn't eat more than a few bites of it because it was so heavy. But after we let it warm up, the cream got... creamier, the moka flavor came through and it became edible. It was surprisingly salty (?) with a bit of sweetness and coffee. Melted in the mouth. Paired with the vanilla cake and whipped cream flowers, it was so good. Still very rich and felt like I had to take a nap afterward.

I also tried some of their banh baos on an impulse. As delicious as the cake was, these were the highlight. I came back the next day, just to buy a few more. The bun is sweet and fluffy, and the pork filling has an awesome mixture of textures (even has a quail egg!).

I love the atmosphere and location of this store. The lady helping us with the cake was super nice. It's also surrounded by many other Vietnamese stores, so it's a one stop plaza for Asian groceries and food. For future cakes, I would visit the Vans bakery on Harbor Blvd, but I am definitely coming back for...

We usually come here during lunar new year but this time we got a birthday cake for our nephew. His mom got her wedding cake and loved the strawberry cake.

We were going to get just a slice as a "smash cake" but they had several sizes. So we went with the smallest mini cake. It's very basic decoration with either blue, pink, white, or yellow icing. Since he's a boy, I wanted blue but it turns out blue is blue berry flavor. To get strawberry, it had to be pink.

Depending on the season and holiday, you'll find other pastries throughout the store. This time around it's endless moon cakes! I love that you can get a single one and try different flavors instead of getting the ones in the box of four.

Luckily this place was not crowded because places in OC don't seem to follow COVID procedures. No one does the social distance and people touch the packages and put them back. I'm not proud of how viet business are careless. You can argue that it's like a grocery store but this is a bakery. For that, I knocked down a star.

However, the baby loved the cake. Inside was chocolate cake with strawberries. It's light, fluffy, and not too sweet.

Parking here is atrocious. You're better off parking far and walking to save your sanity and becareful as a pedestrian because...