Burrito Trail
This story was first published on GrandEats!
The morning had that gray Richmond wintery heaviness, not so much cold as thick, with a kind of almost-rain that just hangs, waiting, over the city. We moved with the pace of people chasing something warm, cutting through town a little too fast.
We had the vague idea of hitting a taco truck somewhere on the street that kept changing its name, Rumrill, 13th, Pennsylvania. We slowed, eyeing a taco truck on Hellings. Then, a restaurant we remembered had exceptionally bad reviews online before pulling up to Ceci’s Mexican Food in the GASCO parking lot on Harbour Way.
The menu offers a variety of Mexican items, including quesabirrias, tacos (with options like steak, pastor, tongue, and birria), tortas, super burritos, regular burritos, quesadillas, fajitas, and chow mein. We have to ask.
Do you have chow mein?
Yes.
Is it good?
Yes.
How come you serve chow mein?
Silence. The kind of silence that means the question doesn’t need answering, or maybe the answer is so obvious it’s insulting to ask. Why does anyone serve anything? Because people want it. Because a taqueria can also be a Comida China if it wants to be, and you don’t need to explain yourself to anyone.
We ordered a Super Chicken Burrito and the Chow Mein Combo. We waited in Ceci’s small covered dining area. Other customers dug into tacos and tortas, conversations seamlessly weaving in and out of Spanish and English. Beyond the walls, cats lounged in every open window of a low apartment building nearby. Another house had a bird cage on the porch, with hand-drawn signs offering camarón. It was the kind of block where everything feels both improvised and permanent.
When we opened our bounty back at Grandview HQ, it was steaming like crazy. Like the container itself was angry, like the food was so fresh and so hot it was trying to escape into the atmosphere. Chow Mein in a gas station parking lot off of Pennsylvania Avenue, and it’s so hot you have to wait, have to let it calm down before you can even think about eating it.
Grandview’s small but mighty crew gathered around the Gas Station Taco Truck Chow Mien. Smells good, someone said.
Heavily flavored, saucy noodles slicked with the kind of grease that’s good, that’s intentional. Mushrooms, celery, beef, and chicken living together in harmony, carrots and cabbage. Bean sprouts and bok choy were promised, but we must have missed them.
It comes with the same oily salsa they give you at the tortilla truck we just visited. We dipped our fork tines in it, not scooping, dipping, running them through the noodles. It’s hot enough to matter, hot enough to make you pay attention. This is real, this might have come out of a wok, this was made for you right now.
New tortillería on 23rd Street turns a parking lot into Richmond’s warmest food ritual
Rolling up to Tortillerias La Numero Uno’s food trailer on 23rd Street feels like walking into a quiet celebration that the whole neighborhood agreed on without actually saying anything. The parking lot hums with that familiar hopefulness: people drifting in from the sidewalk, from cars, from down the block,
Soren Hemmila
Better than The Panda, falling short of the Uncle. So many noodles, we couldn’t finish for $19.43.
The Super Chicken Burrito felt like the right call for a cold day. It came packed with rice. Good Spanish rice. But even we have our limits.
The chicken tasted like it had been pulled from a simmering pot on a back burner, smoky and rich, with edges that suggested it had spent real time on a grill. The tortilla leaned greasy, and you got the sense that a little longer on the flat top could change its fate. But it stayed hot to the last bite, which counted for a lot.
Inside were big chunks of avocado, melted cheese, pico, and a few wandering pinto beans. The whole thing weighed a respectable 648 grams and only cost $13.71. It came with round chips in a sandwich bag tied up tight, the kind of knot you associate with small secrets. The green salsa was gentle, almost shy, and a little more fire would not have hurt. At the bottom of the bag was a single piece of pineapple candy.
Ceci’s keeps going. Cars pull in and out. People walk up and order. The windows stay warm with steam. And the burritos and noodles keep coming like they are part of the weather itself.
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