Most regional Mexican cooking that makes it to Dallas comes from places with some name recognition attached. Oaxaca, Jalisco, the Yucatán, places people have at least heard of even if they couldn’t point to them on a map. La Laguna doesn’t have that kind of reputation outside northern Mexico, which is part of why Mi Rinconcito Lagunero, spaced into a strip on Vilbig Road in West Dallas, is worth a drive even if you’ve never heard the word “lagunero” in your life.
La Comarca Lagunera straddles the Coahuila-Durango border, built around Torreón, Gómez Palacio, and Lerdo. It’s desert, cotton country, dairy farms, nothing coastal or colonial about it, and the food follows suit. Corn takes a back seat here in a way it doesn’t almost anywhere else in Mexico. Flour runs the show instead, and the tortillas are built thick enough to survive a real stew packed inside them, which is the whole point of the dish this region is known for.
That dish is the gordita lagunera, and calling it a gordita undersells it if you’re picturing the version most Texans already know. It started decades ago as a plain side, something to mop up a plate with, and sometime around the 1970s cooks in Torreón started splitting the tortilla open and stuffing a full guisado inside instead. Chicharrón prensado, pressed pork cracklings cooked down until they’re rich and almost confit-like rather than crunchy, is what most laguneros will tell you is non-negotiable. Asado rojo, pork simmered down in red chile, comes in a close second. People from the region will genuinely argue over whether a bigger version counts as a “pizza gorda” or a “tortillón.” That’s how seriously the thing gets taken back home…