Asian Garden Mall:
Orange County Vietnamese Experience
Forum on Great Asian Malls & Supermarkets
GOLDSEA | ASIAMS.NET | ASIAN AMERICAN PARENTING
GREAT ASIAN MALLS & SUPERMARKETS
Asian Garden Mall
9200 Bolsa Avenue
Westminster, California 92683
n the heat of an Orange County summer, the air-conditioned attractions of the Asian Garden Mall are a temptation few OC Asians can resist. The bustling food court, with its long row of grills, cafés, bakeries, snack shops and pho restaurants is probably the biggest draw. Young people flock to the big CD shop selling Vietnamese and Chinese CDs and hang out at the music café. Families with small children browse the toy and trinket shops. Much of the mall's second level is occupied by a half dozen large jewelry shops competing aggressively to sell you everything from engagement rings to jade baubles.
Completed in 1987, AGM is the work of ambitious Vietnamese developer Frank Jao who, single-handedly, has turned the stretch of Bolsa between Brookhurst and Magnolia into the center of America's biggest Little Saigon. In addition to Vietnamese, Chinese, Coreans (Koreans) and other nationalities are drawn to the mall's elegantly monumental facade, big marble statues, landscaped courtyard and central location just a half mile south of Garden Grove's Koreatown, between Anaheim's giant amusement parks and the beaches of Huntington and Newport.
