Albert T.
Yelp
A Japanese/French bakery within walking distance of my Airbnb? Yes please! I went not once, not twice, but three times during my half week stay. And I was thinking of going again, if not for all the other great food in the area.
Strawberry Croissant ($2.40) - My first thought as I looked at this pastry - this looks like a turnover, and a small turnover at that. Then I saw it was only $2.40, so the size made sense. The croissant is flaky and sliced halfway for pastry cream to be piped in and a few slices of strawberry as garnish. I wish that the cream had strawberry flavor to reinforce the idea that this is a strawberry pastry, where strawberry should be the star. Still, this is yummy and I can see why it's their most popular pastry. (4/5)
Cream Pan ($2.60) - This one actually isn't made in house - instead it comes shipped in from the Fountain Valley location in a sealed bag. I wonder if they have a factory there? At any rate, I liked this quite a bit. Very fluffy bun with a soft cookie crust layer on top, and filled with a delicious vanilla pastry cream. (5/5)
Beef Curry Pan ($3.30) - Fluffy donut-like exterior, embedded a bit with panko to give somewhat of a crunch, and filled with a beef/vegetable curry. This is fried well, and I didn't get the impression that it was overly oily. The interface between bread and curry gives a chewy sensation. There are diced onions to give a bit of an extra crunch in the curry, but otherwise it's almost like a pureed mixture, very smooth without any discernible pieces of beef. I think this would be better if they actually had chunks of beef mixed into the curry. (4/5)
Crispy Cheese Bread ($3.50) - Basically a huge cheese crisp - a pile of cheese baked until crispy. They do embed some breadier/mochi-ish portions into the cheese to get a bit of a textural difference, but it's mostly just delicious baked cheese. (5/5)
I actually went again that same evening to snag some more pastries:
Petit ($1) - I wasn't expecting much and wasn't originally going to buy this, but I figured I would give it a try for $1. It turns out that the European style bread at Cream Pan is actually pretty good. Good crust development, with a bit of a hard baked taste. The interior tastes very well developed and is moist and chewy. (4/5)
Kinako Donut ($3.20) - This is a chewy fried donut covered in sweet kinako powder, giving a sweet earthy nutty taste. The interior includes a generous amount of sweetened red bean paste. If you like any of the donuts here and red bean, you will like this. (4/5)
Almond Croissant ($4) - This was the only disappointment in all the pastries I tried. Decent lamination, but very flat, yet too light and airy, and with the flavor and sweetness of the almond fragipane almost completely covered up by the taste of the butter. There were a ton of these still in the case when i went. I guess the fact that there were so many leftover at the end of the day should have given me pause. (2/5)
Third Visit:
Arabiki ($3.50) - Essentially a sausage/hot dog with cheese in a chewy bun. The sausage is very snappy. I don't normally like hot dog buns, but I loved this one. (5/5)
Cheese Boul ($4.50) - As the name implies, it's a bread filled with cheese. The bread is very chewy, more like a European bread than an Asian one. Yummy. (5/5)
Chicken Curry Pan ($3.30) - Not nearly as good as the beef one. The bun is larger and puffier so the filling is spread over more area. There's a big air hole in the middle of the bun. The curry is pretty sweet and the chicken adds a bit more texture than the beef, but this bun is still overall a disappointment. This one also had leftovers when I looked at it during my evening visit. (2/5)
I found most of the pastries at Cream Pan to be good to great, but they definitely have some stinkers. I guess my advice would be to visit once later in the day to see what customers have avoided buying during the day. Avoid those; everything else is probably quite good.
Bathrooms - Two on the larger parking lot end.
Overall rating of the food: 4.44/5