Anh Son Bakery

I have an addiction, and Anh Son is my dealer. My addiction makes me lunge for more. My craving makes me shelve off what little money I have… I am done, I am on ruins and only their biscotti is my saving grace.
I was once an innocent bystander, minding my ways and living a sober life. I never give biscottis a second glance, heck its just old stale bread, baked the second time and slathered with butter and sprinkled with sugar. No biggie, wouldn’t really care,.or so I thought until that one faithful day.
It started with a smile, and a pang of curiosity at the break room. I was hungry, well I need to snack on something and a co-​worker showed me a normal package. She looked at me, I looked at her … and with a nod she said, «Try it, it’s good.» it was at the moment, that first bite that surprised me. What I thought was just a normal double baked bread was light, buttery and crunchy all at the same time. The moment it touched my tongue it crumbled and all my taste reception was amplified. It was sweet with sugar but not too sweet at all. The balance of buttery goodness and lightness was unexplainable like a gastronomical miracle. I took a bite, and another… and another… this went on until I realized I just have to buy my own pack. The package says Anh Son Bakery… and I have never turned back.
It took me alot of intervention and self support to keep my munchies to a minimum (ha!) and once I have been to the actual bakery, I found out that they also sell them in unbranded packages for a dollar a pack (4 slices). Just FYI. The ones they sell in the grocers have 10 pieces of biscotti which they sell for about $ 3.50 but buy 3 fresh packs and you get 12 superb golden crunchy biscotti thats delicious in every bite.

Favorite bakery! Delicious croissants! And they have yummy lightly sweetened sesame bread. They use good flour that keeps the bread they make soft and moist. Coming here in the morning around 8am is a must! All bread will be warm and freshly made. This place is definitely one of those secretly good hole in the wall places.

On occasion my family buys the flavored/​seasoned baguettes. We always get the garlic bread sweet sesame bread and they’re always on point! Very small and straightforward bakery.

My favorite little Vietnamese shop to get Vietnamese style baguettes, croissants, pâté-​a-​choux, and seasoned breads.
For a dollar, you can buy a croissant about the size of your hand (strawberry, chocolate, raisin), and for a little more, you can get the ham and cheese. The croissants sell out quickly, so be sure to come in before 8AM, otherwise, it’ll be sold out.
The baguettes here are an amazing deal, but what my family and I love to buy is the bakery’s sesame bread and garlic breads. I don’t know what they put in these, but they are so addicting! Again, come early if you want these breads, they tend to sell out quickly.
Oh, and be sure to bring cash as well!

Croissant review. With all these beaming reviews about this place, I had to go try one. At $ 1 each, you get what you pay for. It’s a croissant-​shaped bread thing with too much sugar. No self respecting French restaurant nor café would ever buy croissants from here. (So that rumor is 100% wrong.) There’s no crust, no layers. It’s too sweet, and the croissant turns into grainy mush in your mouth. I took a second bite to make sure, then tossed it out.

As others stated, this is a wholesale Vietnamese bakery that supplies bread, croissants, and other pastries to restaurants/​bahn mi shops around the city. Wholesale means you don’t walk in and see a display case of goods, instead you see bakers baking and yummy things cooling on racks as soon as you enter the door.
Sometimes the bakers are busy (baking!) in the back so you have to call out to get their attention. They have a variety of stuff you’d normally see at your typical Vietnamese sandwich shop (ham & cheese croissants, pâté chaud, bahn mi baguettes, sweet toast, etc.) available throughout the day.
The best time to come is shortly after 8pm when the bahn mi baguettes have just come out of the oven. If you’re headed to Savemart to buy bread around this time, stop here instead! Fresh out of the oven, they are piping hot and delicious enough to eat right out of the bag. You get 3 for $ 1.
**I recommend buying the bread fresh daily instead of stocking up because they tend to get hard by the next day. We rarely buy enough to have left overs but when we do they start getting hard/​crunchy by the next morning so we slice them up and make bruschetta.**
Another favorite of mine is their pâté chaud (a savory puff pastry filled with ground pork). Pâté chaud at other nearby places is often very greasy and the ground pork inside can look/​taste like salty mystery meat. However, Anh Son’s pâté chaud is not greasy at all on the outside and the ground pork filling is very tasty! You can actually tell it’s ground pork and see the onions mixed into it. These run $ 1.25 each.

My favorite place for best baked bread! I mean fresh baked! It’s piping hot and delicious! If you’ve never had fresh baked bread before then you have no idea how good bread could really be! They have fresh hot bread at around 8:15pm! You need to go! We get bread at least twice a week! So good!

This little Vietnamese bakery is located near the Toyon Plaza in the alum rock area of San Jose. I like the things that they offer however the store leaves a lot to be desired in terms of ambience.
Basically it looks like this bakery provides baked items for many many donut shops and other places where you can buy bread in the Alumrock and Evergreen areas. When you walk in the racks and racks of recently baked breads croissants and other very wonderful smelling pastries.
There’s really no counter with a display case for their baked items. There’s really no register at the front of the bakery. However I have tried their pastries and I do like them particularly the croissants. I encourage you to try this bakery.
Just a note, the man who greeted me several times when I’ve gone to this bakery seems to be bilingual. I’m not sure that he understood everything I said but he was nice. When you go there tell Mr. Anh son that Karen sent you and enjoy putting on a few pounds.

Just stopped by to get the French rolls and they are steamy and crusty right off the oven.
They taste perfect plain and even better with curry or eggs. This is the source where the breads and pastries you buy from the Asian restaurants and sandwich deli are coming from. They open from 8 – 11 pm and from 7am to 9am (call to check).
Baguette, French rolls, mini rolls, croissant, biscottes, cinnamon biscottes, golden cake, pâté chaud.

This review is for the croissants. They are delicious! I purchased 8 for my family and even after a day old, the croissants taste yummy. My children were begging for to eat a croissant for their snack instead of a cookie. The croissants are huge and very tasty.

Stopped by here while visiting the bank today. The correct spelling is: Anh Son Bakery.
They supply croissants to 99 Ranch.
I bought the coconut croissant for $ 1. It was delicious!
1. Greeted by an adorable kid
2. Fresh – bakers were baking in the back
3. Friendly
4. Delicious croissant! – not too sweet
5. Great value
We are definitely coming back!

They deserve every star! Their product is great! Croissants are perfect, baguettes are perfect… Ham and cheese croissants are yummy too… all very good. Oh and the biscottis with sugar and butter… wow. Addicting!

Amazing croissants. Sweet ones are great! And they have cheese filled ones that are so amazing. Never had a fresher croissant with so much flavor — and flaky goodness

this is really just a doorway, you can’t go inside the bakery, the place is packed with carts of cooling french bread and croissants.
supposedly this is owned by the same people who run the coffee shop a few doors down. but when i’ve come in, the croissants have been much larger and tastier looking in here than the ones in the coffee shop.
i guess because they are wholesale, they don’t have to charge tax. they’re not really about customer service. you ask for what you want, they hand it to you in a paper bag. there are no signs for prices and the place is pretty nondescript.
they often have samples cut up and placed in a box by the door, for their garlic twists or some sweetened bread. mmm.
i generally just buy the bahn mi french rolls. i believe they are 3/​$ 1, used to be 4/​$ 1. i think the croissants are about a dollar too.
i had no idea they have a discount at night, i’m definitely going to check that out.

Captain Pie Hole is embarrassed!
How could the Captain abide (unlike «The Dude») a misspelling (or at least, a mis-​punctuation) of the name of one of his, as well as Ma Megabyte’s, most favorite places?
Indeed, the miscreants (you know who you are) who would sully a business’s reputation by misrepresenting the name (Oh, for the simple lack of a space between «Anh» and «Son») should be chagrined, and should engage in the ages-​old tradition of self-​flagelation, preferably with barbed wire, to atone for these crimes of mis-​nomenclature.
I have espied and noted a pattern of a singular lack of attention to detail in the written ejaculations of the «generation X» and «Post generation X», umm… generations, which is probably due to television, video games, and that most scurrilous avenue of misdirection, «The Internet».
These kids seem to be mostly lacking in virtually all skill sets, excepting «online gaming». If the Captain gets fragged one more time by you little bastards, he’s going to… Well, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but you can bet it’ll be specatucular, as well as ruinous for you little shits!
The Captain, sadly, had been momentarily taken in by this dereliction of the proper use of the English (or the Anglicized version of the Vietnamese) language (s), and is compelled, (Nay, Forced!) to make amends by cutting and pasting his former (necessarily edited) review to this correct, and new venue.
Here is the new, proper, and most recently edited version:
«Anh Son Bakery is a wholesale, commercial (public welcome) establishment 2 doors to the right of «The Coffee Cup» on McKee in E. SJ. They are apparently one and the same, as Carol L. reported in her review of 03/​08, but I will treat them as separate businesses for reviewing purposes.
When you enter, you will notice there is not even a counter, just racks and racks of freshly baked, heavenly bread and pastries, on all sides, running the length of the place.
They apparently supply many stores and restaurants in the area, and I’m fairly certain, Ranch 99 Supermarkets is one of their major customers, at least for baguettes. Also, Robert C. is repeating a rumor in his review of 2/​09, (almost certainly true) that Anh Son supplies baguettes and croissants to finer French restaurants in the area as well.
After having tasted their wares, I’m betting some of the top rated «frog ponds» (French restaurants, for those a bit slow on the uptake) who don’t employ their own Patisieres, (French Bakers) in the area, are using them. (Apologies to Francophiles everywhere, especially just after Bastille Day! The nerve! Stupid Americain!)
The baguettes are the best I’ve ever had, even better than the famed «D’ Amour Des Baguettes in Little Saigon.
When we entered, we saw, way at the back, two bakers hard at work. We had to holler to get their attention, but that’s cool. We bought 6 of the most beautiful croissants we have ever seen. They are the crispiest, lightest, most ethereal croissants either the Captain or Ma Megabyte have ever tasted.
Obviously, they provide the baked goods for «The Coffee Cup», but I think they make a slightly different version than their own croissants for them, because those made for «The Coffee Cup» seem smaller, and just a bit «different» and will be reviewed when I write our impressions of that place in a few minutes.
To sum up, these are just the best damn French baked goods you’ll find in San Jose and an incredible value as well.
My work here is (finally) done, Greg «Captain Pie Hole» Poen, and Donna «Ma Megabyte» Poen, Away!
This and all reviews posted on
by Captain Pie Hole, are copyrighted 2009 by Pie Hole Publishing. All rights reserved.

I am not French, nor am I from a French family. I got no idea what a proper croissant should taste like, or maybe I’ve tasted a proper croissant and it sucked but whatever the reason Anhson makes the best croissants I’ve ever tasted.
It’s own by a Vietnamese family. Years later I would find out that Vietnam had a lot of French in it for a while (which might explain why they make such great Croissants)
Rumor is their Croissants are so good, that many French restaurants have them delivered daily. Shh don’t tell anyone!
So hopefully with all the above explained, you’ll drop your preconceived notions about how good a Vietnamese croissant can be and just go try it. You have to look very hard for it in the shopping center it’s in because the entrance is almost covered by a stairwell.

around 8pm, bring $ 1 for every 3 piping hot french bread rolls you want. get your bread, get in the car, proceed to inhale about 2 before getting home. I swear their fresh made bread is like crack. :)
Just Do IT

After catching this review on Carol L’s page and her enthusiasm for the croissants here at Anh Son, I decided to ask her more about it. Her enthusiasm suddenly became my enthusiasm. I love croissants and while I’ve been trying to recapture my childhood with the croissants at Lee’s Sandwiches, they weren’t cutting it. Therefore I was happy to read about Anh Son and their freshly made delights.
So I headed over there one morning around 9AM. Hey I know this place opens at 6AM but there’s no way that’s happening with me. I park my car and notice that there is The Coffee Cup Carol had mentioned, BUT there’s Anh Son bakery two stores down. Hmm I thought Carol said Anh Son turned into the Coffee Cup. Slightly confused, I just meandered over to Anh Son to check out what was there.
I enter to see racks of croissants and the smell of homemade goodness. I spoke to the guy and said I would take 3 croissants. When I inquired about what this middle rack was, he said it was ham and cheese. Sold! I told him I’d take one of those. He said $ 4 was the price. $ 4 for croissants that resemble a good-​sized dungeness crab? I think that’s a great deal. They were flaky on the outside but soft and tender on the inside. A great croissant to have with butter and jelly, dip in your hot beverage of choice, or to make a tasty sandwich with.
I did go over to The Coffee Cup to check out what they had. They had some pastries to go along with the croissants. But their croissants were sold for 80 cents more, which I found peculiar since they came from Anh Son also. Oh well, just go to Anh Son for the baked goods.

EDIT: *sigh* No wonder it hadn’t been reveiwed yet. My sister reminded me they changed the name to The Coffee Cup. Now their baking-​room two doors down is called Anh Son, while their storefront is The Coffee Cup. Anh Son is where they make everything for the store front, and also all the bread loaves for distribution to all the Asian markets and stores. If you come in the evening around 8pm you can get several HOT loaves of fresh french bread for just a $ 1!!! Mmmmm fresh bread… nice crunch on the outside, fluffy and steamy goodness on the inside!
Oh well, my family and I just always still call the store front Anh Son!
Update 2011: Looks like there was some sort of separation/​sale that happened. Coffee Cup used to be the storefront and Anh Son the wholesale bakery, but now Coffee Cup and Anh Son are no longer affiliated.