El Rio's Bakery, Arizona (US) by Ms Counting her Calories

Melbourne has a small number of Latin American bakeries, but no Mexican bakery. So, I was quite excited at the opportunity to try Mexican cakes and pastries when I stumbled across El Rio Bakery in a tourist guide to eating in Tucson.

Like many of the Mexican places we've visited in Arizona, El Rio looks like it caters primarily for the local market without trumpeting itself to the tourists. We even thought it might have been closed; it looked so quiet. However, Iron Man saw the “Open” neon sign flashing, so we wandered in.

We ordered a few different Mexican pastries that included the Coyota, which is like an empanada with a brown sugar filling and demerara sugar scattered on top.


We also ordered the apple empanada and the Cochita, which is a soft bun made with molasses.



The final pastry was the Pan de Huevos, a sweet soft bun with a sugary cinnamon topping.
This was also our favourite and I sent Iron Man back in to order another one!


There were seats inside as well as seats under a shade outside – but it is extremely basic – it seems to be primarily a bakery for the locals to pick up pastries, rather than a bakery/café.

Overall
El Rio Bakery is a nice little bakery serving lovely tasting Mexican pastries. It is a pity that we don’t live in Tucson as I woud’ve liked to try some more of their pastries, particularly some of the other sweet empanadas, and have more of the Pan de Huevos.

Verdict
Food – 7
Service – 6.5
Ambience - 6
Price – 9

Address
901 North Grande Avenue
Tucson, AZ 85745
Ph: (520) 624 4996