Taqueria Dino's features delicious tacos near downtown Tijuana...

If you're the typical tourist to Tijuana, you've probably spent hours, hours and more hours hiking up and down the eight blocks that form Av. Revolucion, which is touted as the most-visted tourist mecca in the world. The San Ysidro/Tijuana border crossing averages something, like 60,000,000 crossings a year, and that's quite significant in my book and the book of the U.S. government. Yet, after exploring the tourist strip of Av. Revolucion, how many tourists venture off the strip to discover the true cuisine of Tijuana? Most norteamericano tourists are happy with the tourist fare to be found along Av. Revolucion, yet if you venture a block or two off "the strip," you can find wonderful, local, Mexican cuisine.

Left: Taqueria Dino's is open to Calle 2 and it is very pedestrian-friendly. Right: Looking into Taqueria Dino's from the sidewalk along Calle 2, east of Av. Revolucion in downtown Tijuana.

OK an example of local cuisine would be the small,open-to-the-street restaurant which is open to Calle 2, just south of Av. Revolucion, located on the north side of Calle 2, yet is yards, or perhaps more correctly, worlds away from the crazy tourist-oriented mecca of Av. Revolucion. You're only a half-block away from the world-famous Av. Revolucion, but if you don't speak Spanish, you're out of luck at Taqueria Dino. You have to remember that you're only a half-block from the tourist strip, but you're really in Mexico, although you can gaze at the chaparral-covered hills just a couple of miles distant on the U.S. side of the border, but Dorothy, you're not in Kansas, girl, you're in Mexico.

Left: Dino's features family dining where locals gather. Right: As you walk into Dino's from the street, you are greeted with an expansive dining room, many friendly hosts, delicious foods and colorful balloons attached to the walls and ceiling.

Like most small Mexican restaurants, Taqueria Dino is open to the street. You walk in and you're greeted by a friendly family, with the mother at the counter, the father cooking, and brothers and sisters waiting tables, cleaning, cutting salsa and whatever else is needed. Naturally, you grab your beer from the cooler as you walk in, you find yourself a table, pop the top on the beer, and r-e-l-a-x... as per the custom in most small Mexican restaurants.

Naturally, there is no printed menu. In the case of Taqueria Dino, and many other small Mexican restaurants, the menu is printed above the counter and, naturally, I ordered a taco de tripa, from among the huge choices that they offered. No problema, as they had the meat in stock and were ready to cook it. In true Mexican fast food fashion, I got to watch the cook put the meat on the grill, cook it to perfection and when the meat was almost ready, I was privileged to watch him throw on the tortillas to heat them, and give them attractive grill marks.

Left: Dino's kitchen; as you walk into the restaurant, it's to your left. Right: The cook cooks my generous portion of tripe, for my taco.

While the meat and the tortillas were grilling, I got out my camera and started taking photos of the restaurant. The lady at the counter asked me, in Spanish, "Que hace a usted?" which translates to "What are you doing?" I told her that I was taking photos for a web site article; she gave me a puzzled look and held a local newspaper up and asked me if I was taking photos for the paper. I told her "sort of," but what I was doing would reach many more people over the Internet, as it encompasses the global community. I was met with a blank stare; I immediately figured out these folks hadn't entered the digital realm of the world wide web. Outside of my usual character, I asked permission to take photos, permission was granted, and the rest is another Mexican restaurant write-up. Nice folks, who serve good food!

Taqueria Dino is a fairly big operation for a small restaurant in Tijuana, as the staff consisted of three women and two men; labor-intensive which seems to be the norm in Mexico. One gentleman cooks and the other guy busses tables and mops the floor. I ordered my taco de tripa from a young girl, as another young girl cut up veggies for salsa, an another young girl swept and mopped the floor.

My friendly server didn't seem to grasp the concept of the Internet, not bad, as like her, I don't have the concept for the Internet except for a lot of 1's and 0's and a whole bunch of protocol and other stuff... So upon her advise, I just settled down to eat one of the best tripe tacos that I've ever eaten and totally purged the concept of x.25 protocol from my brain. Naturally, after my taco was ready, I went over to the counter and filled my taco with cilantro, onions and oregano, not to mention picked jalapenos and carrot slices from the bowl placed on the table.

Left: One of the best tripe tacos that you can ever imagine can be found at Tacos Dino's. Right: Not to mention that your tripe taco comes with a bowl of pickled veggies, a rather common sight in small Mexican restaurants.

The price? A little high at one U.S. dollar, about $12.00 pesos, but they're located close to Av. Revolucion which is in the high rent district of Tijuana. After eating those greasy, ground beef-filled bell tacos at $.99, I didn't have a whole lot to complain about the tacos featured at Taqueria Dino.

If you find yourself wandering away from the tourist strip of Av. Revolucion and you're interested in some real food, pay attention to Taqueria Dino on Calle 2, as they are world's away from the tourists, yet mere steps away from authentic, Mexican, cuisine.

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