Now THAT is a flour tortilla!

Last weekend, I was in Tucson for the city's annual book festival, and I made sure to bash traditional Cal-Mex at every opportunity as a bastard child of Sonoran cuisine. It wasn't just me playing up to the hometown crowd, folks: our chimichangas are Styrofoam compared to theirs, California machaca is a stringy glop compared to the glories of air-dried carne seca, and we don't even have caldo de queso, for chrissakes!

The biggest difference, though, is in the flour tortillas. Ours are simply vile save those of Rubalcava's Market, but those from the Sonora region are like manna, given that it's the birthplace of the tortilla. And the queen of the flour tortillas is the sobaqueras, the gargantuan tortillas so named because they can reach up to one's armpits if extended over a forearm.

Since I was in town, I decided to seek out the most famous sobaqueras in town, those made by St. Mary's Mexican Food in West Tucson.
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Dave Lieberman

I am a gabacho. While I have many non-gabacho food-shopping habits (markets in Tijuana, an intimate familiarity with my local Northgate, a love for nopales, etc.), when time is of the essence, I resort to the dreaded White Folks Supermarket--you know, Vons, Albertsons, Ralphs, et al.
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I have had many bad tortillas in my life, lifeless disks not even worthy of turning into chilaquiles or throwing as Frisbees. But I've never had anything as vile as the flour tortillas sold under the Trader José's brand at Trader Joe's.

I had high hopes, of course, given Trader Joe's other house brands are usually good-really good. And I'm not one of these purists who retch at the fact that big brands co-opt Mexican food. But I knew there was a problem the moment I opened the pack and put the tortilla on the comal.
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There some OC Mexican market dynasties--the Gonzalezes of Northgate, the Bonillas of El Toro, El Toro Bravo, and El Camino Real, the Rubalcavas of La Reina and Rubalcava's Bakery, the Zambranos behind Taco Mesa, La Reyna, and Soho Taco--whose imprint is all across Latino OC, whose product travels far and wide. And then there's Nuño Brothers Market in SanTana, a sprawling shopping plaza in--yep--Nuño Brothers Plaza, off of big, bad Standard. The namesakes are fabulously wealthy, frequently popping up in campaign-finance reports in city politics, and generous in local charities--but their only location is that shopping plaza. There, they have a market, a carnicería, taqueria, and what we care about for the purposes of this column: a tortillería.
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Cool logo, though...

Geographic isolation has the unfortunate tendency of making people over-estimate the worth of their restaurants, and nowhere is this more true than South County and its Mexican food scene. Oh, there's Mexi restaurants a'plenty, mostly Cal-Mex dining (and Dana Point's own curious scene, which I'll examine at a future time) and the occasional wab shop. But between Albatros in Lake Forest and The Surfin' Chicken in San Clemente, it's a vast wasteland for Mexican food.

Nowhere is this more true than El Campeón, a San Juan Capistrano institution that wouldn't rank as the eight-best tortilleria in SanTana but is lionized by South County types as more Mexican than the Templo Mayor. As if! The food is fine, if not particularly memorable. Their masa, as Dave can attest, ain't much. And their tortillas? A grand disappointment.
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Rubalcava's wonders

In the borderlands, a flour tortilla is sacramental, holy, filling, the true daily bread: fluffy, filling, thick, pliable, toothsome love. In Southern California? Universally, shit.

I've eaten tortillas my entire life, and the flour versions have only been consumed out of necessity for quesadillas (due to their large size) and for burritos (for the obvious reasons); other than that, there's no reason for them. I've eaten flour tortillas made in San Diego, made in Los Angeles, made in Orange County, and none were memorable, most the same: tepid, thin discs better as Frisbees than for day-to-day consumption.

No bias on my part: while I do prefer corn to flour, I do know the magic of a great flour tortilla--the only flour tortillas my family will devour are the ones that whatever tía or tío made the last trek to Juarez or Tucson, and stocked up on hundreds, to dole out to the rest of the family. Here? Crap. That's why, whenever someone asked me where to get good flour tortillas in Orange County, I'd tell them there was no place--because there wasn't.

Until now. Ladies and germs: behold the best flour tortillas in Southern California, made by special request at Rubalcava's in Placentia.
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Dave Lieberman

Flor de Mexicali, the Santa Ana bakery that makes what may be the very best tortillas in Orange County, is expanding to Garden Grove. The store, which previously was the completely forgettable Eden's Bakery, is located at 12859 Chapman Avenue, in the Vons shopping center at the corner of Haster Street.
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Dave Lieberman

Let's take a moment for a reality check here. Orange County has, as we've demonstrated in this column, some truly outstanding tortillas. There are tortillas in every corner of the county that are made the traditional way and which taste right. The problem is that when it is 5:18 p.m. and your dinner guests are coming at 6, you are not going to stand in line at Flor de Mexicali or anywhere else. You are going to flee to your local Albertsons, Ralphs or Vons--yes, you are, don't lie.

The problem is that those places are almost completely taken with the flabby, weak, culturally dangerous mierda put out by the GRUMA corporation--see Gustavo's list of why they're disk-shaped evil on the aisle endcap. The GRUMA folks are smart; they produce both Mission and Guerrero brands, and they know that if they make it look like you have a choice, you'll end up picking one or the other of their major brands. So what do you do, if you don't want to support the Masecatraficantes, but you don't have a Mexican store handy?

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To be honest, I've never shopped at the El Metate chain of supermarkets--no need. But I'm familiar with their tortillas, because the Soho Taco guys use them for their tacos whenever they're not doing their awesome hand-made ones. After one recent taquiza for the Weeklings, they had the big ol' stack you see above and gave them to me--I had paid them for the tacos, after all.

The Soho Taco taco is a wonderful thing, of course, but the El Metate tortilla? Had never given it a thought. And when I examined the tortilla, free of any fillings, I didn't expect much. It's a bit small, kind of thin, and seemingly lackluster.

Then, it hit the comal.
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Sorry for the lack of a tortilla photo, but this shall do...

Southern California food goddess and host of KCRW-FM 89.9's Good Food Evan Kleiman rarely ventures into Orange County, but when she does, she's usually hanging out with my chica. One time for a segment, Evan went to El Toro Meat Market in SanTana, and has never fallen out of love with it, especially their tortillas. So rather than one of us wax poetic about the famous place, I'm turning over the mic to her...take it, Evan!
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