Mexican restaurants do fry their chips.
Mexican restaurants cut fresh tortillas into wedges and deep fry them in hot oil until they are crispy.
This is the traditional method for making restaurant style chips.
Many restaurants including Mexican restaurants make their own chips by using fresh corn tortillas and doing so contributes to a superior flavor when compared to store bought chips.
The corn tortillas are basically cut into desired shapes such as wedges or triangles and then they are quickly fried in some hot oil to get a crispy texture.
The key to good restaurant style chips is to achieve a thin and crispy texture by using the proper frying technique as well as quality tortillas.
Mexican restaurants also heat their chips by using nacho chip warmers or tortilla chip warmers.
These chip warmers keep the chips warm and crisp and tasty to eat.
The Mexican restaurant chips taste different because the tortilla chips, taquitos, carnitas, fish and other foods are fried in the same fryer as the fries are and all these foods leave their flavor in the oil which is absorbed by the chips, fries and other foods.