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SALT LAKE CITY — Armando Guerrero, operator of House of Corn Mexican Cuisine in Salt Lake City, takes "the corn matter" very seriously.
He makes his own tortillas — an anomaly among Mexican locales, he maintains — starting from scratch and using red, blue and yellow corn kernels. "In order to make good Mexican (food) and real Mexican (food) you need to make tortillas," he said.
What's more, he aims to serve authentic Mexican food, not what he describes as the Americanized "Tex-Mex" offerings of some eateries. "We just want to bring the Mexican experience to people," he said.
The new locale at 414 E. 200 South opened its doors to the public on March 9, but it isn't the first incarnation of House of Corn. Guerrero, who's originally from Cuernavaca in the Mexican state of Morelos, operated House of Corn in Sandy, but closed the business at that location last May. Business took a dip after the closures of a nearby movie theater and charter school, source of a lot of customers.
He wasn't sure what would happen after the original restaurant shut its doors following about three years in operation. He had studied automotive engineering at Brigham Young University-Idaho before deciding he wanted to give the restaurant industry a try. "When you close one location, you don't know. It's very painful, like losing someone," he said.
Encouraged by a friend and business associate and confident in the quality of his food, though, he decided to try again. He's made some menu tweaks, but continues the tradition of making his own red, blue and yellow tortillas, one of the distinctive features of the business. Corn and tortillas are a staple of Mexican food, and Guerrero maintains that his tortillas, among other things, set him apart in the competitive and increasingly crowded Mexican food field.
"We know we have competitors. We are very different from the rest," he said.
White or yellow tortillas are perhaps the norm, in part because white or yellow corn is generally easier to grow. But southern Mexican locales also cultivate blue and red corn, grown at higher altitudes, and he incorporates tortillas from the colorful kernels into his menu. It makes for more of a color explosion on the plate, but there's more to it than just aesthetics — red and blue kernels, Guerrero said, have more nutrients.
Likewise, his tortillas don't have the preservatives, acids and other chemicals of the store-bought versions, resulting in a "real, organic" product. After they've been heated in water, he grinds the kernels in a machine to make corn masa, which has a Play-Doh-like consistency. The masa — the tortilla dough, essentially — is then placed inside another machine that flattens it, cuts it into circles and cooks it. Many competitors, he maintains, just buy tortillas from supermarkets or suppliers.
Other locales, moreover, offer up what he calls "Tex-Mex" cuisine, he charges. "I'm not saying it's bad food. (But) I've never seen it in Mexico," he said.
His offerings, by contrast — tacos, pozole, huaraches, chilaquiles, quesadillas and more — are the real thing. He taps recipes of his grandma and great-grandma.
