La Esperanza Bakery — Restaurant in Nampa

La Esperanza Bakery ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you’re looking for great tamales, my favorites are at La Esperanza Bakery in Caldwell. I’ve eaten a lot of tamales over the years and I’ve had some excellent ones. These are by far I have ever had. They are also far superior to the James Beard award winning Tamales I had at Los Hernandez Tamales in Union Gap, Washington.

The tamales are kept back in the kitchen, so you have to ask for them. They come out steaming hot. Jalapeño & Cheese and Red Chile Pork tamales are available daily, until they run out. On Sundays, they make a small number of Green Chile Chicken tamales. I have never been there in time to try those, but I hear they’re good.

The Red Chile Pork tamales have big chunks of well-seasoned pork. Those are my favorites. I also really like the Jalapeño & Cheese. When you heat them up, they have oozing cheese in the middle and a nice amount of heat, but not they are not overly spicy. When I visited the store yesterday, I bought 12 tamales, 6 of each flavor. TJ bought the remaining 7 tamales.

These tamales are huge! To give you a sense of scale, these tamales are in a dinner bowl that is almost 10 inches wide. One tamale with rice and beans or a salad will make a meal for most. They freeze well. They cost $2.50 each or $15 for six.

We were there around 5:30 PM last night. As always, they were doing a swift Although some of the shelves were empty, they were constantly bringing out new trays of freshly baked goods.

In addition to having the best tamales, La Esperanza Bakery is the best Mexican bakery in the Treasure Valley, and quite possibly the state.

Location: 5216 Cleveland Blvd., Suite C

Hours: Open daily from 7 AM to 10 PM

Highly...

Went here by the recommendation of a friend who said the tamales were the best…well I didn’t hesitate shelling out $34 /dozen, and took 2 dozen. 😱what a waste of money. These were so thick with masa and so little filling. The jalapeño/cheese filling was hardly noticeable. What little cheese was a thin layer of whipped something. The pork ones were no better…over stuffed with masa and no flavor from the tiny bits of meat. 3 others tried them, but nobody wanted to finish them. I ended up throwing 1/2 away. They must have 2 different levels of tamales…,perhaps they have separate ones for Anglos who they think don’t know better, cause they were awful!😡 I had to top with so much shredded cheese and also just to eat any of it. Very disappointing.The bakery was delicious though. I will go back for the pastries…but never again...

I was excited to try their tacos since I used to enjoy their tamales back when they had their location in Caldwell. Starting with the asada tacos—they were quite chewy and could definitely use more tenderness and flavor. The birria tacos were solid, no complaints there. I also had the menudo, which didn’t taste bad, but didn’t feel very fresh either. One piece was so large it really should’ve been cut into smaller portions.

As for the tamales, they came out piping hot, which was great. We ordered three—two pork in red sauce and one with rajas. Unfortunately, they were out of rajas and didn’t let us know until they brought the order. It also took about 20 minutes to get our food, even though we were the only customers there at the time.

Overall, the experience was mixed—some things were good, others could definitely...