Review: Juicy, messy gorditas the stars of Gorditas Durango

Weekends are busy at Gorditas Durango: The limited number of tables in the small restaurant quickly fill, and there’s often a line of people at the register waiting to place an order or pay for their food.

The owners have been running restaurants in Wichita for more than 15 years, most recently the 21st Street Carry Out, which closed in 2011, and the confident and esoteric flavors they’re producing help them stand out from the majority of Wichita Mexican restaurants.

If the name wasn’t a big enough hint, taking a look at what’s on each of the tables should tell you the specialty of the house. Translated as “little fat one,” the gordita is a thick tortilla stuffed with a variety of meats. It’s made from masa, or in northern Mexico – especially Durango – it’s made with wheat flour, making it more akin to a pita. In neither case it is the loose flatbread and ground beef that defines the average gordita at certain fast food restaurants. This is better.

Any true Mexican restaurant is defined by its taco (and gordita) fillings. The delicious barbacoa and carnitas that serve as the backbone of most places represent well here. Gorditas Durango also has plenty to be proud of in the radioactive red and green colors of the guisados, braised meats that are glistening with pork fat and that possess a big burst of earthiness and acidity that comes from chiles and limes. The dough, though, isn’t strong enough to hold up to their gravies, and your fingers will come away stained as a result. You won’t mind. Guisados are not easily found in Wichita, and it may be even harder to find fillings such as rajas (poblanos and cheese), picadillo (minced meat), and chicharron (fried pork skin), so take advantage of them here.

The flour gorditas hold together well and serve as a perfect pocket for their fillings. The corn versions are even better: two conjoined disks of dough are fried on the griddle, making them crunchy and an excellent contrast to the soft and tender meat. They don’t hold the fillings as well as the flour version, but it’s worth suffering through a little extra mess.

As is the case for many Mexican restaurants, Gorditas Durango has an expansive picture menu dominating the wall behind the register, but the star of the show is the gorditas. As long as you’re putting some kind of meat into some kind of a tortilla, you won’t choose wrong.

Gorditas start at $1.75. Mexican platter meals range from $6.99 to $8.99. The restaurant asks customers to order at the register, and the food is delivered when it’s ready.

This story was originally published November 20, 2014 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Review: Juicy, messy gorditas the stars of Gorditas Durango."