Coco’s Croffles and Shoe-Inspired Croc-Fels Bring Unique Desserts to Dallas

Anna Nguyen and her family have always had an affinity for croissants. They would regularly go through boxes of them from Costco. With her love of France, croissants and Korean snacks, the pop-up Coco’s Croffles – where they press croissants into waffles and blend them with Asian and American flavors – was a natural conglomeration of all these things.

“I love the butter and flakiness of a croissant, and I saw that people in Korea were making croffles, and I was like, ‘You know what, let me try,'” Nguyen says. She bought a waffle press and started making desserts.

“Then I got brunch one day, and I was like, ‘Can I do a chicken and croissant?’ So, I pressed my croissant into a waffle, and it was delicious, so that’s what started it all,” she says.

Coco’s Croffles offers a variety of waffles from sweet to savory. The smoked salmon croffle is their most popular savory croffle and Nguyen’s personal favorite.

“People may think salmon is weird on a croissant, but if you like a lox bagel, that’s really what it is, but I think this is even better, because the croissant is really buttery and flaky, and it’s not as dense as a bagel,” Nguyen says. “People will try it, and then come back and be like, ‘Thank you for forcing my hand on this because I love it, can I have another one?”

Nguyen’s niche is fusing Asian flavors in unexpected ways, like the beef bulgogi croffle topped with sesame seeds and chives with a side of kimchi. She also has a take on the classic chicken and waffles using Korean fried chicken.

“It’s definitely a fusion menu and I try to change it up depending on where I go. For the bulgogi, teriyaki beef and Korean fried chicken croffle, we happened to participate in a Korean festival, so I thought of some popular Korean flavors. Then, when we do other events, like I did an event that was more American, I did maple bacon and cheese,” Nguyen says.

On the sweet side, she has a turon croffle, which is caramelized bananas and slices of jackfruit, a Filipino staple. Another sweet Filipino-inspired flavor is an ube (purple yam) croffle topped with ube whipped cream, ube halaya and an ube syrup drizzle.

They’ve also dipped a little into the Dubai Chocolate Bar trend with their knafeh pistachio chocolate croffle.

“Something that’s really popular for the sweets is our chocolate pistachio croffle, which definitely goes into that Dubai chocolate craze, but it’s so good because we bake the knafeh dough at home, we mix it with our pistachio paste and we do a darker chocolate to really balance out that sweetness and then with the slight savoriness of the croffle it kind of balances it all out,” Nguyen says.

Most, if not all, the croffle toppings are homemade, like their cookies and cream filling, which is hand-whipped with cookie crumbles. The only thing they buy premade are the labor-intensive croissants.

A recent addition to their menu is a Croc-fle, which is a waffle shaped like a Croc shoe (think: taiyaki); thanks to some family in Vietnam, they were able to acquire the Croc-fle making machine that they first saw in a viral TikTok. They even give away Croc jibbitz with the purchase of a Croc-fle. You can get your croc-fle stuffed with mozzarella, cookies and cream cheesecake or cookie butter cheesecake. 

Nowhere else in Dallas can you get a Croc-fle right now; consider it a Coco’s Croffles exclusive.

“I don’t see anyone else in the states even doing this, and this is when I say it’s truly a family business, because my family in Vietnam immediately were looking up where they can find this, met up with the lady that was selling it, asked her where she got the machine, what recipe does she use; I could not have done it without my family in Vietnam, because they found it for me, and they got someone to custom make it for the U.S.,” Nguyen says.

Coco’s Croffles plans to remain solely a pop-up for the time being. Nguyen enjoys meeting new people through the business and keeping it as a hobby.

Check out their social media to see where they will be popping up this month for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and other events.