Goc An Vat
In Little Saigon, a new shop offers authentic Vietnamese street foods, teas, and packaged snacks
Although Vietnamese street foods have been widely available for years at the Little Saigon Night Market during summer weekend nights, you’ll otherwise have to hunt through the Little Saigon area for restaurants solely dedicated to these authentic but rarely exported treats – An Vat OC and vendors at the QT Golden Market Place are solid bets. In 2025, Goc An Vat (Vietnamese for “Snack Corner”) joined the pack as a new option in Westminster, sporting the same old fashioned Vietnamese decor and style as An Vat and Tram Cream Coffee, plus a food and drink menu that roughly combines the offerings found at those two places.
Roughly a dozen an vat (snacks, $7-12.50) begin with sweet cheddar- or sweet plum-flavored french fries, stir fried corn dishes, fish ball dishes, quail eggs, grilled stuffed rice paper tacos, and fried rice cakes; another 14 banh trang (rice paper, $8.25-13.25) items include numerous rice paper roll variants and rice paper salads. Most of the rice paper items are loaded with dried shrimp, dried squid, pork cracklins, beef jerky, or pork floss plus either sate or kumquat sauce, and you can order a $25 platter (shown) with any three items from the rice paper menu. Tea, milk tea, and matcha drinks are available for $6 to $7, with soft drinks – including the original Thai Red Bull – for $4 per can.
A small sign on the floor and signage next to the register flag a few other items, including bowls of hot, spicy ramen with seafood, meat, and/or veggies and sweet coconut-filled bo bia ngot rolls. Numerous additional bags of ready-to-eat snacks are available on shelves, as well.
We’d characterize all the items we tried as pretty good rather than great. Our three-item platter included two types of rice paper salad that effectively blurred into one another – large mounds of cellophane wrap-like translucent rice paper mixed with sweet sauce and small pieces of dried beef and squid – as well as a small pile of cigar-sized rice paper rolls with indistinct soft fillings, meant to be dipped into a thick, sweet and spicy sate.
A medium-spicy seafood soup combined a thin, lightly spiced broth with mushrooms, broccoli, kimchi, a brick of packaged ramen noodles, and roughly two pieces each of seafood including shell-on shrimp, squid, and manila clams. While the portion size was fine for the $15.50 price, and all of the ingredients tasted fresh, the broth was sort of plain and didn’t unify the ingredients into a cohesive whole.
Our group’s french fry fiend never complains about fries anywhere, but quickly objected to the unexpected sweetness and artificial flavor of the cheddar fries here. Thankfully, she had only positive things to say about the sweet (though thin and lightly filled) coconut and sesame bo bia ngot rolls. We’ve preferred versions of these rolls and many of the other items from other local vendors, but apart from the fries, none was objectionable, and the rice paper salad was uniquely delicate here.
That said, we really appreciated the friendly, relatively quick service at Goc An Vat, as well as the seating, which though authentically low to the ground and not built for comfort included plenty of tables and stool-sized chairs – not the case at places such as An Vat OC or Tram Cream Coffee. While we wouldn’t expect to return for more here, the fairly wide range of authentic street foods will likely appeal to many people living in and visiting Little Saigon, and is worth at least one visit.
Stats
Price: $-$$
Service: Counter
Open Since: May 2025
Addresses
15496 Magnolia St. #107
Westminster, CA 92683
714.946.1993
Instagram: @gocanvat_snackcorner