Last week, great friend of the blog, Jon Poritsky filed a Nacho Report from of all places, Oklahoma City. Jon runs the candler blog, a very up and coming film blog and was invited to take part in Dead Center, an OKC film festival. By the way, if you want to write a nachos report, just let us know.

What on earth was I doing in Oklahoma last week? This seemed to be the question everyone, Okies especially, would ask me as I fumbled about the Sooner State. At first, my answer was that I was a critic from New York covering the deadCENTER Film Festival for my website, the candler blog (full coverage of the fest over here). When they didn’t see that as justification for landing in flyover country, I would just say I was visiting a friend.

Given its placement, I had figured I was heading to the Southwest, the perfect place to check out some nachos for my friend, Señor Nachos.  But Oklahoma is in the Great Plains region. Lacking is a distinctive cuisine, fast food is blindingly popular in Oklahoma City. In all honesty, the place I was most excited to eat at was Sonic, the fast food chain that sees fit to put ads on the air in NYC but not open a freaking store. Let’s just say that if I could obtain an Ocean Water Slush within walking distance to my place, the diabetes would set in very quickly.

Still, I was on a mission. On my last night in OKC, my gracious host took me out to Ted’s Café Escondido , a Mexican joint which was kind enough to keep the take out counter in a storefront across the street instead of a drive through window like every other restaurant in town.

About a second after sitting down, we were brought some tortilla chips, flat tortillas, and dips. Interestingly, both myself and my compatriot received our own little cups of salsa and cheese sauce. I think this is a cultural foible on the part of Oklahomans. At every single restaurant I went to (except for Ted’s) the waiter felt inclined to ask if we wanted separate checks, regardless of party size. Financial decisions are a seemingly private matter over there; the table is no place for patrons to bicker over who had what, I guess. This privacy must extend to your nacho dips. No one should fear another guest will scarf down their precious cheese sauce. I’m really just hitting on nacho ethnography here, so let’s get back to food.

I keep kosher, which in this country means I’m a vegetarian once I’m 300 miles away from an ocean. This made it very difficult to order nachos. There was one item on the appetizer menu that was meatless. And so, I give you, Ted’s Café Escondido’s Cheese Nachos!

Mmmmmmmmm. Fresh corn tortillas covered in oopy goopy cheese. I’m not a food critic, so this is uncharted territory for me. As you can tell, however, these bad boys were kinda bland. At the time, I didn’t care because I was hungry like the wolf. Dipping them in the delicious salsa helped, and yes, I did dip them in the cheese sauce. How I’ve lived this long is a wonder to me too.

But this was dinner, not snack, so what came next? Why, the Chiles Rellenos of course. This was a meat dish that I had to tweak a bit. Instead of beef or chicken to fill up those poblano peppers, I asked them to load it up with some more of that cheese, which was awesome because it came covered in cheese too, with sides of rice, beans, guac and sour cream.

I had a flight a few hours after this meal, but that didn’t stop me from loading up on all this Mexican lacto-liciousness. The place even threw in some free sopapillos for desert. I downed the cinnamon covered pocket too.

Overall, Ted’s cured my hunger pangs. If you find yourself hankering for some Mexican in Oklahoma City, it should be pretty high on your short list of places to eat. Unless you’d rather sit in your car, in that case just find a Sonic (it won’t be hard) and munch on tots and a shake. I miss them already.

For even more nacho fun

Dispatches from outside New York by Lee Frank

Nachos in San Antonio by A Lovely Guest

Nacho History Lesson by Rachel Anderson

Nacho Addicts: The Return of Nacho Tattoos by Lee Frank