While I don’t know much, one thing that I do know is tortillas!
Typically, I trek to Feria Latina on NW 23rd for my everyday tortilla needs. But before COVID and my triple-play of massive strokes, I was loading up every week at Chelino’s Tortilla Factory at 2101 S. Robinson Ave.
Recent social media buzz about the factory brought a rush of nostalgia to the forefront of my mind and belly, and I decided it was time to wrap myself once again in a warm blanket of divine tortillas.
Now, if you have been there, you know that it’s in an industrial part of town, among rusting junkyards, low-down bars and feed mills. But across the way, the Tortilla Factory stands, the backbone of the Chelino's restaurant empire that reaches across Oklahoma City and beyond.
Open daily at 8 a.m., the factory was already humming when I pulled in around ten. After some rocky parking in the small gravel lot, I was rewarded with the warm scent of fresh tortillas—flour, by my nose—which filled up my senses and pulled me to the entrance.
Through the set of reinforced doors, I was hit with the familiar—and, truthfully, blissful—aroma not only of tortillas, but of the whole grocery: fresh vegetables, charred meat, and the unmistakable scent of imported sweets surrounding me.
Everything looked familiar, though maybe a little different… or maybe that was just my unreliable, stroke-fried memory talking. Either way, before I got lost in the fruits, meats, and other Mexi-treasures, I had to witness the main event—the fresh tortillas.
Walking past the “employees only” sign, three women in hairnets were using the industrial tortilla press, kneading the dough and stretching it out to an acceptable length. Then they were cooked on a conveyor belt that looked like a Mexican adaptation of Willy Wonka… Guillermo Wonka?
While I couldn’t grab one of them right off the conveyor belt due to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, they let me have a bag of the freshest flour tortillas, the condensation sticking to the plastic. I breathed in the powdery scent of the warm tortillas and thought, This is unmistakably the best smell in the world!
You think we could bottle that?
Newly minted tortillas in hand, I waved goodbye to those ladies, finally knowing how the sausage tortillas are made.
As I walked back into the store proper, my wife wanted to try fresh buñuelos, a fried flour tortilla doused with sugar and cinnamon. A whole pack of them, around ten, would be good with some melted butter and a cup of black coffee—something I planned to do when I got home, stat.
Walking to the front of the store, my mouth started watering, and I realized I had to get a bag of fresh chicharrons from the butcher counter. Sure, it’s a greasy snack made from fried pork belly, but it is one of the true food treasures that, done right, earns you a guilt-trip to the gym tomorrow... or possibly the day after.
As I was getting that bag of chicharrons, I found myself eyeing their prepared foods, from steaming barbacoa to spicy menudo. For a second, I considered grabbing a full meal to review right there on the spot, but if this is the same legit Mexican food served at Chelino’s restaurant, then the eatery deserves its own full review. Be on the lookout...
With some freshly made salsa verde from the refrigerator, a Chucky-branded Fanta, and a small pecan candy for the wife, I settled up at the register for around twenty-five bucks.
Giving the Chelino’s Tortilla Factory a final, lingering glance, I marveled at how long it had been since I'd visited. Out in the parking lot, I greedily pulled a tortilla from the bag—just like I used to—and took a bite. After all this time away, that was all it took to confirm that Chelino’s is still the tortilla standard bearer, now and forever.
-
Follow Louis Fowler on Instagram at @louisfowler78.
