Au Coeur de Paris Patisserie & Boulangerie

This was another place I looked up online and happened to see that the writer of the article thought their macs were among "the best" in the OC.

My SIL was initially reluctant to go to Westminster because she really hates the traffic and the parking in their crowded strip malls. Well, we didn't have a problem with that at all over here...

This next bakery is not in the more populated shopping areas of Little Saigon.

It's stuck in a depressing strip mall in the suburbs...

We would soon find out if they lived up to their reputation...


Au Coeur de Paris Patisserie & Boulangerie is on the bottom right corner of a two story complex. The parking spaces were labeled Le Versailles, so perhaps that was an older name for the bakery? Wait, a quick check on yelp confirms that the space was once  occupied by Le Versailles.

It's pretty plain in here. One case was filled with French style cakes and tarts, and macarons. The other case was rather sparse and had pastries like palmiers, napoleons, and eclairs.

We saw that they had pate chaud for $1.25 each in the metal warmer.

More of the pastry display case. We only got the macs here, to be fair.  The cakes looks okay but for some reason, they didn't seem as visually pleasing. They had some mini quiche that looked promising, but we didn't feel like eating a quich at that time. Their flavors were spinach and bacon and another one had asparagus.

I selected five macarons at $1.50 each. An older yelp review listed them as $1.25 each. There were little handwritten notes that said, "Buy 10, get 1 Free", but I didn't think spending $15 just to get one free macaron was worth it. Plus, their flavor selection was a bit limited. Anyhow, I also got one of the Jesuite pastries for Bert. They are so named for the triangular shape of hatss worn by Jesuits and are filled with almond paste (Frangipane cream) and topped with almonds.

We ordered a few pate chaud to go and one to share.

There's the Jesuite again. One part of the crust broke off, hence no almonds on that section. After looking online on how it's supposed to look, I saw that many versions also put powdered sugar on top. This one didn't. I had a bite of it later that night and found it to be dry.

Cutting the pate chaud...

I love the pork filling in here. I need to learn how to make this so I can have it anytime that I want! This was so good warmed up and the perfect size to have a little snack before moving on to the next place.

Here are the five macs from Au Coeur...

The flavors were Pink Lemonade, Noix de Coco (coconut), Passionfruit (which was a wierd brown color), Noisette (Hazelnut, which was a wierd purple color), and Cafe au Lait (which had tiny coffee nibs on top). They were eaten a day later and didn't get their own "photoshoot".

[Update - Actually I did take photos after all but forgot to up load them with this batch!]

Here they are at home the next day...

The Cafe au Lait, the prettiest shaped of the bunch.

This was the wierdly colored Hazelnut. Purple, really?

This was the (ugly) Passionfruit. If you didn't know the flavor, you would think this was chocolate mint or something.

The coconut macaron, after one day, was very soft and practically fell apart. I didn't like that at all.

While the Pink Lemonade looked pretty, it was cloyingly sweet.

They were not as intensely flavored as the macarons from Rocq. They were thinner and softer than Bon Epi's.

I wasn't a fan ot the strange colors that didn't really match the flavors either. I wouldn't say these were the "best" in the OC, but it was worth at least one visit to check it out. Maybe their other stuff (cakes and tarts) are better!

On the other hand, we enjoyed the pate chaud, but we can get that a K-Sandwiches and other Vietnamese bakeries in San Diego. The Jesuite was kind of neat since I'd never seen one before in any other French bakery. Bert enjoyed it with his coffee the next day.

The lady working there was very nice.  I noticed the clientele, at the time of our visit, were non Vietnamese folks just enjoying their coffee and pastries both inside and outside of the modest bakery.

Au Coeur de Paris Bakery
9441 Edinger Ave
Westminster, CA 92683
(714) 775-8465

They do not have a website

Here are the reviews from yelp as well as the following articles:
Best Bakery 2011 - OC Weekly
Pate Chaud - Favorite dishes of 2011, OC Weekly
There's Savory with the Sweet at Westminter's Au Coeur de Paris - Orange Coast, May 2013

I had one more place on our agenda, but we took a small detour to one of Westminster's first Asian malls. My SIL wanted to buy some special face cream so off we went!