Panaderia Guatemalteca Tikal

Looking for a bakery shop on a Monday morning 8am. Didn't know Raymond Sour Dough and Backhaus are both closed on Monday. Found this place on Yelp and thought we should give it a try. It's on the outer skirt of downtown San Mateo. Without Yelp, I will never stop at this place as I always drive through this street. I have never walked around there at all. It's a small bakery. They have a few customers getting their coffee. We got a pastry that looks like a Napoleon pastry in a Chinese bakery and a piece of "cake" which turns out to be corn bread. There is no label or menu of any kind anywhere. Two pieces total to be $6.50 which I thought it's reasonable. They accept credit card and they don't have the tip screen which is shocking in San Mateo. I appreciate it more than you know. The "Napoleon" is not the same as the Chinese pasty. There is no nut. Two pieces of flaky puff pastry with cream sandwiched. It's like the French mille-feuille but with one layer only. It's fresh and tasty. Solid 4.5 stars. I am not a huge fan of corn bread. But I think this is a good piece of corn bread. Great with coffee. Solid 4 stars. Glad we have found and tried this place. You should give it a try as well!

Cute little authentic bakery. No one spoke English, however I didn't have an issue with pointing and asking for what I wanted. The lady helping me was super patient. Overall, the baked goods were fresh and my coworkers enjoyed it. The price point is also amazing.

Made it out to this really great find, thank you Yelpers for putting this on my radar. Hardest part about getting here is the parking. It's located within the direction leading towards the 101 freeway. Shop is very small. Right now during COVID, they retrieve the breads for you from the cases. I ordered some papusas (2 cheese & loroco - 2 bean & cheese) that were really good! Wanted to give their atole a try, and was stumped when the girl asked which kind? Corn or rice? So I got one of each! Also very good, I can't say I like one more than the other. Purchased to take home, Guatemalan hot coco bars at $3.50. Makes 4 cocos.There wasn't much in the sweets selection for me to pick from, think I'll need to get there earlier next time. I'd like to try some more of their stuff. Everyone's pictures look so good. Next time.

Its a hidden gem. Extremely delicious.

This is a small Guatemalan Bakery just on the outskirts of downtown San Mateo. They have quite a large selection of baked goods from Bread to Cake and Pastries at very reasonable prices, most item's being under $1. They also serve Coffee and have a very small amount of seating (1 table inside and 1 or 2 outside in the nicer weather).I really have very little experience with Guatemalan baked goods but I would say the breads are better than the Cakes. I recently picked up a couple of huge cake slices with really very little idea what I was actually getting:Jam Filled Cake $1.25 (http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/h9nVPTfaXb2-vXeMIhhIGA?select=Kkbc1NCi9pl5nuBkYk_QPw#JZSSqV5wxe22UvRL48gIKg) Dense, light amount of Jam filling. Not too sweet.The other was some Banana / Coconut based item $1.50 (http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/h9nVPTfaXb2-vXeMIhhIGA?select=Kkbc1NCi9pl5nuBkYk_QPw#Kkbc1NCi9pl5nuBkYk_QPw) which was a cross between Banana Bread and Cake. The texture was a bit odd to me - Soft but also juicy (?) not sure what it was coated with but it was pretty good. It also weighed quite a bit, probably around 1lb! You really do get a lot for your money here!

Go At Night. I went just after 8 PM. I didn't know what anything there necessarily was and I didn't care. They were baking up a storm. It smelled wonderful and the place was so warm my glasses fogged up. I ended up having what tasted like a banana bread and it was amazing. Having no car, I walked a mile and half to get there and loved every step back as I ate my find.

Not impressed....My family is actually from Guatemala, finding places that serve Guatemalan food in our community is important to us. My mother usually orders Guatemalan tamales for Christmas, and this year she ordered them from Tikal. They were absolutely horrible! Guatemalan tamales are usually a savory warm deliciousness of soft masa with some form of protein in the middle (I have had them with either pork or chicken), they also sometimes have strips of bell pepper, olives, whatever the person making them decides to put in them, but traditionally that, with a red sauce along with the meat. They are beautifully wrapped in a rectangular shaped pillow made out of banana leaves and tied with some sort of twine like material. They are delicious!This time, that was not the case....Just by looking at them the tamales were not a beautiful rectangular pillow, they were a ugly little green ball. We opened the banana leaf and inside was a firm ball of masa that when cutting it open was pretty much just that and a chicken bone with a tiny bit of chicken meat and a little bit of sauce! That's it! No bell pepper, no Olive, no nothing except for that and a ton of masa. We tried them thinking that maybe they tasted better than they looked. We were wrong! They were so gross! They tasted as though the masa burned and they tried to salvage it by usingthe parts that didn't, or some of their tamales burned and they just through those out and kept using the same ones that did not burn around them. Either way they tasted like they were cooked with liquid smoke or something. So disappointing especially on Christmas Eve!Today on the way home from SF, my son let me know that he needed some Guatemalan food for a project he was working on and they were going to work on it tomorrow. The only place I could think of that would have something quick to pick up and eat was Tikal. We stopped by and walking in it was really clean, it smelled good like warm pastries and food. The service was not inviting at all though. There was a young woman at the counter who was busy putting some things away and asked us what we would like to order. I asked her if they had any tamales available, she said they did, but that they only had masa and nothing else. I didn't know if I heard her correctly, so I asked her, "you only have tamales with masa?" She said, " yes."as she said that, she gave me an annoyed look. I asked her if they had any chuchitos which and another type of tamale that are similar to Mexican tamales, and she said they did. I told her the reason that I was looking for Guatemalan food and ask her what else they had, she said absolutely nothing and looked completely disinterested in what I was saying. I took the two chuchitos and some pan dulce only because I was on a time crunch, or I would have not purchased anything. I left, and was so bummed out because it is really difficult to find good restaurants and food places that serve Guatemalan food. I also was very disappointed because I make it a point to support not only local businesses, but businesses owned by people who have immigrated here especially Guatemala being that I am Guatemalan myself.

I have this friend from Guatemala and often misses the sweet goodies from his country. One day, just visiting San Mateo, we passed by the Tikal panaderia and got attracted to the painting on wood outside the store, depicting a typical pyramid scene (of Tikal, of course:). It was closed that time so we put it in our 'to try another day' mental list. We finally went last week and had an awesome time buying Incasa coffee, their most popular instant coffee, as well as different sweet breads (made there, just flying from the shelves). Not overtly sweet as the American pastries and not exactly similar to the Mexican ones either. Check it out, I found everything cheap and good. Plus I liked to play 'grocery store girl' and the lady working that day allowed me to feel at home. For my friend was like a trip home minus the flight ticket.

Guatemalean pastries has similarites to mexican pastries. all behind plastic sliding doors. just pick what u want and cashier will ring u out.buys: 1 cake-like slice, 2 cupcake-like buns, coffee (3.70)-not sure coffee origin, not listedsmooth, easy drinking-pastries cheap, unpricedcrumbs:-people are busy in the back, just hollar and service will be quick.

Hola a todos fui a este establesimiento y me trataron de lo mas malo que nunca inmajine las personas que trbajan alli llegan enojadas y no trtan vien alas personas y aparte no dan lo que el cliente pide no recomiendo que balla a este lugar y el pan tiene muchas cascaras de guevo Mal Mal servisio