Juarez Restaurant & Bakery - Round Rock

Juarez Restaurant & Bakery - Round Rock

By Teresa Pione Friday, 05 December 2008

The family that owns Juarez Mexican Restaurant & Bakery understands the distinctly different skills of baking and cooking.

“The bakery requires skilled labor — it’s much more precise, whereas in cooking you have some room for error,” Mario Juarez said. “The bakery requires a lot of experience.”

The Juarez family, originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, opened the restaurant in 1993. Mario’s siblings and their father, Amancio, work together to run the business. They make family recipes and handmade bakery items.

“When you’re a small, mom-and-pop restaurant, you can’t mechanize,” Juarez said. “The variety is just too huge, so we don’t use any machines — just our hands. I guess we are the machines.”

After ordering at the counter, customers can get their own warm chips and salsa to snack on while their meals are prepared. The 12-table dining room filled up quickly during a Tuesday lunch rush.

Within about five minutes of ordering our meal, a waitress delivered our entrées. Five pork tamales ($6.95) were served topped with ground beef, red chili sauce and Monterey jack cheese. Though a bit spicy, the heat was not overbearing. Mild tamales are also available.

Tamales are a popular item and orders have already come in for Christmas, Juarez said.

Migas ($5.50) are available all day and were a savory combination of scrambled eggs, jalapeño peppers, tomatoes, onions, shreds of tortilla and cheese covering the entire plate. A side of refried beans and seasoned cubes of potatoes made for a hearty and tasty meal.

With eyes much bigger than my stomach, I dove into the cheese enchiladas ($5.99), which were served with the standard refried beans and rice. The three enchiladas were stuffed with cheese and covered with a moderately spicy green salsa. Both quantity and quality were impressive.

Perhaps the most aesthetic of the entrées were the pollo chipotle fajitas ($6.99). Strips of grilled chicken bathed in a thick, mildly flavored chipotle sauce were served with a choice of warm flour or corn tortillas. While the sauce had a kick to it, it did not overpower the flavor of the chicken mixed with grilled onions and green peppers.

An irresistible Mexican specialty, sopes ($2.99/each) came out dressed with grilled chicken strips, fresh lettuce, diced tomatoes, guacamole and crumbled queso fresco. The thick, corn flour fried cakes nicely supported both the flavors and weight of the toppings.

Dessert choices include vanilla, strawberry or chocolate tres leches cake, flan and apple empanada, which is made with wheat bread and a sweet apple filling.

Feliz Navidad

Juarez Restaurant & Bakery’s busiest season is between October and March, when holidays heighten demand for sweet breads.

Día de los Muertos (Nov. 1) brings in orders for Pan de Muerto bread, while Epiphany (Jan. 6) celebrations call for Rosca de Reyes bread.

Other bakery items include:

• polvorones - Mexican cookies
• sema - wheat sweet bun flavored with anise
• yoyos - muffin style pastry with coconut flake
• bunuelos - crispy bread with cinnamon sugar

1701 S. Mays St., Ste. P, Round Rock, 255-6262, www.juarezrestaurantbakery.com, Mon.-Sat. 6:30 a.m.-8 p.m., Sun. 6:30 a.m.-3 p.m.