Lomita Japanese Bakery Cream Pan: $16 Strawberry Croissants

Cream Pan, at 24020 Narbonne Ave in Lomita, is the Los Angeles County branch of the Japanese-French bakery that Yelp users voted the best bakery in California. The shop opens at 5 am, and the reason most people come is the strawberry croissant: a flaky croissant split and filled with custard and fresh strawberries. The rest of the self-serve shelves hold the soft Japanese breads, cream buns and sandwiches that made the Orange County original famous, at a fraction of the drive for South Bay locals.

Cream Pan began in 2002, when owner Yoshinori Inada opened his first bakery with a focus on one thing, the cream pan. In Japan a cream pan is a soft sweet bun filled with light custard, a staple of every neighborhood bakery and convenience store. The bakery's own history page says the cream pan is still a popular item, and the shop is named after it.

Inada trained in French-style baking in Japan, and that mix of French technique and Japanese taste runs through the menu. The strawberry croissant arrived shortly after the first shop opened, and it became the item that defines the brand. Over the years the bakery added dozens of pastries, breads and cakes, plus savory Japanese-style sandwiches, hot dogs and curry rice.

In February 2024, FOX 11 Los Angeles reported that Yelp had named Cream Pan in Tustin the best bakery in California, with the strawberry croissant the item reviewers talked about most among more than 6,400 reviews. Cream Pan now runs three shops, in Tustin, Fountain Valley and Lomita, and Lomita is the only one inside Los Angeles County.

The croissant is the obvious first order. It is baked crisp, cut open and filled with a thick layer of custard and slices of fresh strawberry, so it eats somewhere between a pastry and a small cake. Eat it soon after buying, because the cream softens the layers within a few hours.

For a box to share, Cream Pan sells six strawberry croissants for $16, a tray of 12 for $32 and larger trays of 25 for $65 or 34 for $88 through its online ordering system for the Lomita shop. A box of six is the easy way to bring the bakery's best-known item to a gathering.

Pair the croissant with something savory. The bakery's catering sandwiches show what the shelves carry by the piece: tuna, egg, ham and turkey sandwiches on soft white bread, and katsu sandwiches made with either chicken or pork cutlet. A cream pan bun, the bakery's namesake, is the classic sweet alternative if strawberries are not your thing.

Cream Pan works like a bakery in Japan. You pick up a tray and tongs, move along the shelves and choose what you want, then bring the tray to the register. Breads, sweet buns, savory pastries and sandwiches sit in separate sections, and the menu page lists pastries, breads, sandwiches, rice dishes, desserts and donuts as its main categories.

The bakery's own menu page warns that many items do sell out. The strawberry croissants are the first to go, so the early hours matter. The kitchen staff start baking late at night and keep going through the early morning, so an early visit gives the widest choice of the day's first bake.

Rice dishes set Cream Pan apart from a typical bakery. Japanese curry rice makes it a practical breakfast or lunch stop as well as a dessert run, and the sandwiches travel well for a day at the beach in Torrance or Palos Verdes.

Cream Pan's whole cakes lean on fresh fruit and cream, in the style of a Japanese pastry shop. Through the Lomita order site, the strawberry shortcake starts at $25 and the chocolate cake at $25. The cheesecake and the organic matcha cake each start at $40, the fruit tart cake at $45, and the fruit roll cake is $30.

The sandwich platters cost $60 each. The mixed tray has 24 pieces of tuna, egg, ham and turkey. The katsu tray has 15 pieces with your choice of chicken or pork, and the order page notes that the kitchen cannot split it half and half. A third tray combines 16 mixed sandwiches with five katsu pieces.

Cakes must be ordered at least one day in advance, and the order page states that same-day cake orders are cancelled without notice. In October 2026 the Lomita order system did not offer same-day pickup for any online order, so plan a day ahead for trays.

To cancel an order, Cream Pan asks customers to phone the shop at least 48 hours in advance. Custom cake messages are limited to 30 characters, and you should have your order confirmation ready at pickup. All picked-up sales are final, although the bakery will refund or exchange an item if the mistake was on its side and you contact it within one day.

Lomita is a small city tucked between Torrance and the Palos Verdes hills, and Narbonne Avenue is one of its main commercial streets. After the bakery, the Lomita Railroad Museum is a short drive away. Its official site lists free admission on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The museum, founded in 1966, displays a Southern Pacific steam locomotive and tender, a 1910 Union Pacific caboose, a modern Santa Fe caboose, a 1923 Union Oil tank car and a 1913 Southern Pacific wood box car. Its station building is modeled on the Greenwood depot of the Boston and Maine Railroad in Wakefield, Massachusetts. A croissant on the museum benches is an easy weekend morning with children.

Address: 24020 Narbonne Ave, Lomita, CA 90717. Phone: (310) 997-0732. Hours: Monday to Saturday 5 am to 7 pm, Sunday 5 am to 5 pm, open seven days a week.

Prices quoted here come from Cream Pan's official Lomita order site at order.creampan.com. Arrive early for strawberry croissants, order cakes and trays at least a day ahead, and ask Karpo to pair your bakery stop with a South Bay beach walk.