El Rafa Bakery

I have always loved getting tamales here. Never too much or too little of the masa around the meat. They have a smaller bakery as well.
On the day I went in, they didn’t have barbacoa, something my daughter had been wanting for about a month. The lady said they only serve it on weekends. We’ve been customers since 1999, though we haven’t been there in about 9 months. I don’t know when they changed it to weekends only. We use to be able to get it any day of the week.
All in all, a great place to get tamales. I have moved recently and live much closer, so it’s now more convenient to get great tamales.
Only down fall was no barbacoa on the day we wanted it.

I’ve been here a few times and it’s a hit or miss with the freshness of the pastries. The last time I walked in, I asked if there were any more cakes and the man working there rudely said no. He was busy packaging tortillas, with his bare hands. Which didn’t mean much to me until I saw him ring a customer up with cash and continued packing tortillas with his bare hands. This is extremely unsanitary! I would not recommend this place to anyone. Poor service, language barrier and not clean!

Woooohoooo!!! Happy dance happy dance!!! Sunday breakfast with a smile is back!!!
For those of my Pasadena peeps who grew up on the pan from LA RAFA Panaderia on red bluff, we missed the quality we grew up with.
If your parents went there, we remember what good Mexican pan n barbacoa taste like.
Over the years the change in quality due to the original owners renting out their shop to other ppl showed.
Because the new management just did not do the bakery justice and all of it’s customers ventured off to other places.
An in all honesty the new places never measured up, because the barbacoa from other places was always waaaay to greasy n fatty, pan was stale n flavorless an it just wasn’t baked with flavor n love!
But the original owners are back!!! An cookin it up like they used to!!! Share the news because this is one bakery that deserves 5 gold stars for for quality and service. Help keep the mom n pop shops open an tell everyone u know that the quality of good pan and barbacoa has made it back to Pasagetdowndena!!!