Taqueria Durango

First time here. Very nice great prices and tasted wonderful.
Did I mention it was cheap!!!
Loved the tacos!!!

This is a little unassuming place of Page ave set back in a small strip of stores. But even though it is something you might pass up if you didn’t know it was there, you should definitely stop by here. The food is great, (and cheap!) and the people are friendly, and it’s defnitiely a more laid back atmosphere.
You come in and typically seat yourself, and a waitress will come take your order. We like to split a large margarita, but be warned, they are very LARGE! They give you some chips and salsa to start and also be warned, one of the salsa’s (the green one I think) is really spicy! After that we usually order what seems like one of everything off the menu. Everything is only like a couple dollars, so we get a whole table full of food, and it doesnt end up costing that much. Tacos, taquitas, sopas, tortas. Then after you pick what you want you pick which meat goes inside. We usually stick with Carne asada, but have tried others and everything ends up very good and filling. My suggestion is to just mix and match and try a few different things to see what you like. It’s hard to go wrong here especially for the price.

Cinco de Mayo was my first time at Taqueria Durango. They had a band outside and a bouncy house for the children. It was decently busy at around 5:30. They serve you a basket of chips with 3 salsas in squirt bottles. The chips are quite thick. There is a spicy red salsa, a spicy green salsa, and a mild red salsa. They were all pretty good. I ordered the chori-​queso, an al pastor taco, and a carnitas taco. We all know I like the pork… The chorizo with the chori-​queso had an excellent flavor and spice to it but was pretty greasy. The queso was much too cold and started clumping up. The al pastor pork again had a nice flavor to it but was very greasy. The grease made the corn tortilla fall apart pretty quickly. The carnitas pork was excellent. Very tender and perfectly spiced. All in all this was a decent meal and satisfied my Cinco de Mayo craving but I wouldn’t rush back. The best tacos in town are at El Morelia on Saturdays and Sundays. These were adequate but pale in comparison to those.

Durango was the first «authentic» taqueria I ever ate at, back in the late ‘00s, but I hadn’t been there in a good five years, due to some personal problems I was having.
It feels good to be back buying $ 2 tacos, and it also tastes good. Viva Fidel.
The night I visited, it was after 8 PM (the place closes at 9, even on a Saturday), in the immediate aftermath of freakish spring hail storm. I figured there might not be anyone there, but I was surprised to see the place was nearly full. People may have been riding out the storm with margaritas and weird Mexican soda with real sugar in it.
I was pleased to see a few groups of Hispanics interspersed with your more typical Overland inhabitants (no need for a description there), not because I separate people into groups based on race, like Donald Trump, but because it lets me know the food is on point.
There’s more tables in the main dining area than there should be, for the sake of my own personal convenience, and the counter where you order carry out is right there in the middle. If the place is sufficiently busy, it’s basically impossible to do so without interrupting someone’s meal, but I was willing to make that sacrifice.
Anything for Mexican food. (Well, maybe not anything.)
The menu is more elaborate than I recall it being, with pretty much anything you could order at (god forbid) an El Maguey, including tacos, tortas, burritos, nachos, enchiladas and fajitas. As many times as I’ve been there, I don’t think I’d had anything other than the tacos.
One of these days, I’ll have to check out some of their deep cuts, as Beyoncé’s sister Solange might put it. In the meantime, I figured it might be interesting to order more or less the same thing that I ordered at La Monarca a few weeks ago, to see how the two stack up.
As I recall, the prices are more or less the same. La Monarca forces you to buy tacos in twos, whereas at Durango, you could just order one taco and that’s it, if you wanted to. Something to keep in mind if you’re on a budget. On the other hand, the burrito I got at La Monarca came with free refried beans and rice. The refried beans were roughly the consistency of day-​old coffee, but hey, free rice and beans is free rice and beans.
The burrito at Durango wasn’t cut in two or covered in sour cream, so if you wanted to you could pick it up and eat it like a burrito from Chipotle. It even came wrapped in quite a bit of foil paper, which could make for a fun diversion for a child (provided they’re of appropriate age) while daddy has his burrito.
I’d say this burrito was at least as big as a burrito you’d get at Chipotle, and it may have had more meat in it. There was also rice, lettuce and maybe refried beans. (Who can remember?) If I’d been thinking, I would have tried to order a burrito with two kinds of meat, which is a well known way to trick Chipotle into giving you a larger serving of meat at no extra charge.
The tacos, on the other hand, are tiny. The tortillas might be smaller than the ones they use at La Monarca, and they’re not as overstuffed, though they’re still about as stuffed as they can be, given the size of the tortilla. Said tortillas may have been of a slightly higher quality. I didn’t try enough meats (ahem) to do much of a comparison. Generally speaking, the meat at La Monarca seems to have more gnarly bits of char, which I actually kinda like. It makes me feel like a cowboy.
Overall, I’d say that Durango has the best food of any taqueria in that part of town, by a slight margin, with the caveat that I haven’t tried everything they have to offer. .. yet. The only real knock against it is that it might be a pain to get in and out of, depending on when you go.

Authentic Mexican restaurant. Casual place, friendly staff, expedient service. Great lunch spot if you are in the area.

Authentic mexican food! The tacos and sope were delicious! So far the closest I’ve been to authentic mexican food in STL.

Having grown up in Southern Arizona I know good Mexican food. This is good, authentic Mexican food. The staff was nice and friendly. They have lots of seating. I’m not usually a fan of chimichangas drenched in anything, but the queso they poured over this chimichanga was great! The salsas were flavorful and spicy. Green is spicier than red. Wash it all down with a real sugar Mexican Coke. I highly recommend!

If you know Hispanic food, stay away. The lingua is not prepared correctly and the other meats are poor quality. Best part was the chips and salsa. The salsas were superb.

Quality taco’s and great salsa. This is a Mex — Mex as opposed to a Tex-​Mex kind of place. So far the best showing of an authentic street taco I’ve come across in STL.
Highlights for me are:
The salsas come in a squeeze bottle, just like you would find at any quality street taco place. 2 Red salsa’s, one good with nice flavor, one good and hot. Plus one green that’s got great flavor and isn’t too spicy but still has enough kick to be authentic.
The street taco’s are larger than expected. I can probably only eat 3 as opposed to my normal 5. They are gringo sized taco’s. Tortilla, meat, onion, cilantro, that’s all there is to it and all there should ever be. If you need more pizaza you need to head to Taco Bell.
Its tucked away and not easy to see from Page but its worth the effort. Follow your GPS and you’ll be fine. Its also pretty busy with a healthy number of people showing up for lunch. Everybody from day laborers to executives will be there starting at about 11:15am.
Service is good and I appreciate the fact that everyone is welcome. Even us English speaking gringos.

Good food n pretty cheap. not that good of a building but your hear for the food.

Best real Mexican food in St Louis that I’ve found so far. Not a Sombrero and Feliz Cumplianos mariachi have another bathtub frozen drink place. This is an I-​love-​real-​tacos place. Not big on atmosphere, but you’re here for the food anyway.
Ordered three tacos, one barbacoa, one asada, and one al pastor, plus a beer and a side of beans. The beer never came. Instead I got a basket of chips and two squeeze bottles of homemade salsa — one green, one red. The chips seemed a bit old, but the two salads were spicy and amazingly tasty, the green ring my favorite: tart and spicy, a good tomatillo taste.
Then the tacos and beans arrived. Wow. They all arrived on double corn tortillas with onion and cilantro, just like baja. The asada was very good: meat cooked well but juicy and flavorful. The barbacoa was my favorite: obviously this meat had been braised a long time — really nice. I wanted to like the al pastor, but the pork was a little fatty and flavorless. What a shame. It looked red and tasty, but wasn’t.
The frijoles alone is worth the trip. A little cheese sprinkled on top, with good seasoning and deep flavor. I finished my basket of chips by dipping them into the beans :).
Great find on Unilocal.Next time I’m in town, I’ll be back. Wish I had known about this place when I lived here.

Great authentic Mexican food hidden in an overland strip mall. Also attached to a Mexican grocery store. Street Tacos are such a great deal at only $ 1.89 each. I tried the fish, pork carnitas, poblano pepper and cheese. They so many choices though. I’ll have to go back just to try them all. The mango margarita was really tasty too.

This place is a must! Every time I come to STL I make sure to come here. I always bring company and they are never disappointed. The tacos are fabulous, burritos are huge and the steak fajita quesadilla was absolutely amazing. Don’t pass on the queso blanco (cheese dip) for your chips. The cup they give you is so big you can use it to top your entrée. The prices are comical for the size of the portions and the quality of the food. This is the best Mexican joint I have EVER been to.

Just went there for lunch today and saw this is going to be the 100^th review. I think it’s a sign!
Recently, Taqueria Durango has bought the space next door and doubled the restaurant’s size. Yahoo! I’m genuinely happy for them because their food really deserves more patrons!
And I’m saying that based on my personal experience. The four (and a half) star is the average of my many 5 star and occasionally 3 star visits. After my first review, I have been back numerous times, often when I just reeeaaally need my taco fix. When you’re there you would definitely feel like they’re the owners not the waiters ;) In the nice way though, not in the soup nazi way, lol.
My new love there is the pork stomach taco. It’s just something about the chewiness and the stomach-​y aroma that sends you right to foodie heaven. There was only one time it slightly disappointed, the tortillas were a little soggy that day. But that was only a one time problem, I never had any complaints about that otherwise.
I’d admit my fav there is definitely their taco. I mean, who wouldn’t love tacos? But they do carry a very large variety of food that deserves attention too. The fajita is always good, and the sizzling hot cast iron plate just adds so much more festive vibe to it. Their shrimp cocktail can be good, it’s shrimp with avocado slices immersed in tomato sauce. Great summer food, very light and refreshing. Unfortunately, the quality of the shrimp cocktail hasn’t always been consistent. Last but not least, I haven’t seen many people talk about their deserts, but their sopapilla though… Of course they do it the right way with a big scoop of ice cream on top!
Oh, do you know this place is good for take out too? Sorry pizza, but my movie nights are getting a new taco pal!

Despite the lousy service the first two times, I just can’t stay away because the food is THAT good. This time, we sat right in front of the kitchen and received excellent service the entire time – very fast. My husband had the quesadilla again because he loved it. I got a chicken burrito, which was MASSIVE (yay leftovers!), and delicious. I don’t think we had a single complaint (unless you count not having fountain soda, which I think I failed to mention on the first two reviews). This experience was 5-​star, but since only my most recent rating counts toward the average rating, I don’t feel like I can rate more than 3 stars overall. If I continue to get such excellent service in the future, my rating will continue to go up.

Had 3 tacos for carry out: Carne Asada, Barbacoa and Carnitas. Fantastic! especially the Carnitas. And the red and green salsas included were even better than the tacos. Some of the best salsa I’ve ever had.

Sooo happy to have found this place. Awesome choice of meats, many of which are hard to come by at other places. Had three tacos (chicharon with red sauce, chorizo, and toungue) and all were delicious and some of the best I’ve had in St. Louis. The chicharon was fantastic, full flavor and a bit of heat. Give this place a go, you won’t be disappointed. This place just got a new regular in me.

My first visit was a solid 3 star experience, which Unilocal classifies as A-​OK. It seemed like the sort of place to seat yourself (which is what I did), and you check out at the register. It was pretty fast, which is good for lunch. Service was friendly, and I was asked if my food was good when I checked out.
I visited on 7/​3, so I wasn’t entirely sure if there were holiday hours in effect. They really need to work on ensuring whoever answers the phone is qualified to do so, as whoever answered seemed quite confused and not qualified to take phone calls. I asked the hours and they didn’t seem to understand my question, so I repeated myself, & they then set the phone down and continued talking and laughing in the background. After waiting a couple minutes for someone to pick up the phone again and answer my question, I hung up. A restaurant with a phone really should have someone qualified to answer it and answer common questions. They were, in fact open, as I drove down and found a decent crowd.
The food was 3 – 3.5 stars. It was pretty good, but I have had better. Chips were probably 2 stars with the salsa in the plastic bottles. I wish the salsas were labeled or otherwise identified. Tacos were yummy and arrived quickly. I had Chorizo, fish, Al Pastor, & carne asada. I will likely return. Note that there’s a pretty good chance you will have heartburn afterwords.

Wasn’t on the menu, but asked for a steak fajita burrito. Pics speak for themselves. Oh, chips weren’t warm, but green sauce was awesome.

Went in and wasn’t even greeted for the 3 minutes I was in there by the lady sitting behind the counter speaking Spanish to the cook and I had to say hi to and still didn’t get anything. And the place stunk so just left. My friend and I are both in the service industry so we know how restaurants are supposed to be and greet paying customers. So we decided we weren’t gonna spend our money there. Unfortunate because we looked up the reviews and pictures and it looked like a great place to go.

Finally, I made it to Taqueria Durango. I had stopped in to the grocery once for some supplies, but somehow had not found a time to have a meal. Mr D joined Ms T and I for lunch and it was a good one, just what I was hoping for.
Ms T opted for a torta de pollo. It was large and well filled. I felt the chicken needed a little more seasoning on the grill and I suspect it was grilled ahead, being a little dry and not hot. Nevertheless, with all of the avocado (in guacamole form), tomato, lettuce and mayo, it was a good sandwich. It is something I would order, perhaps with a different meat, but I never can get past ordering some tacos in places like this.
Mr D and I each ordered a plate of three; one lengua, one cabeza and one al pastor. All were good. The lengua was cubed and was very juicy and tender. The cabeza, I felt needed salt, but that is easy to add. The al pastor is a different style than I have had. I don’t expect it off the trompo in St Louis, but this was sort of shredded, more guisado style. Regardless, I liked it a lot. It was well seasoned. (I understand that El Morelia has the trompo on weekends and I have to get there for that). My side of frijoles were also very good, homestyle with some chile in them.
There squirt bottles of sauce are also good homemade offerings. I did not try the mild. The green is avocado-​tomatillo style. The so-​called hottest one is made with dry red chile. Neither are particularly hot. If you eat any heat at all you can use plenty of these. I like the green on lengua and the red on my frijoles and cabeza.
T Durango has a full menu although I doubt if I can get past the tacos. It is a really nice place with table service. We all enjoyed our meal. This is closer than driving to Cherokee for us and based on our one trip there, this was much better. I could be talked in to another star. The prep of the chicken on the torta held me back and I really would like to try some other things to see consistency. In general, I am thrilled and will be back.
Update April 09, 2015 — Ms T and I returned with Bro J and ate a bunch of tacos; lengua, al pastor; pollo, sadero, cabeza and barbacoa. I must say all are good and each person will find their own favorites. I personally choose lengua, al pastor and barbacoa out of this group. Even more recently I stopped for lunch at La Tejana on Lindbergh. I really like both places and could not choose between them. I do think that La Tejana seasons the meat a little better, based on the one visit. Also, the squirt bottle salsas at La Tejana are my preference. I’m not taking anything away from Durango though and will patronize both.

I come here all the time. Best hole in the wall Mexican in STL. The service is lacking, but they make for it in their authenticity.
Their green salsa is amazing and very spicy, not for the lighthearted. They have many items that you can order that are not on the menu like chicharrones and chilaquiles.
It’s far from your standard Mexican restaurant menu.

1^st time husband found this place. The salsas were fabulous, something for everyone. Food very tasty. Service was excellent. We have to com back to try more off the menu!

Ok… This place is FER REAL… no really, for real. Its totally authentic and awesome. I have been for lunch a few times and most recently I went for dinner. I have gotten the tacos each time. I just can’t NOT order them.
Upon Arrival they greet you with chips and three kinds of salsa. Mild, Medium (Verde), and Hot! Everyone at the table gets their own salsa dish to choose their salsa concoction of choice. I prefer a little mild with some of the verde, and a wee-​dash of hot. Just enough to make me sniffle.
I choose different tacos now and then but the last visit i ordered one steak and two pork. The pork (al pastor) are my favorite. Very tender and marinated wonderfully. They come with cilantro, onion and lime for the juice. Three tacos are perfect for a filling meal (especially after all those chips!)
Their margaritas are wonderful too! Strong yet very flavorful. Not overpowering in tequila.
The location is in a small strip mall off Page next to a Pricilla’s fantasy shop. Don’t let that veer you away though. Go in and get yo’self some tacos!
It was busy for dinner when we were there but our service was fast and friendly!
DO NOTE: that you don’t really get a check, you just go up to the counter when you are finished and they will tally you up there.

I’m not a fan. The wife loved it when she went there a few weeks before me and kid 1 gave them a shot. We disagree.
Kid 1 had a steak quesadilla. She reported that it was greasy and not very good. I tried it and agreed. She also complained of a stomach ache for the rest of the day and didn’t want dinner.
I had a trio of tacos. The shrimp taco was the best thing I ate that day. The shrimp were succulent, perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked. Served on a duo of corn tortillas with chopped onions and chopped cilantro. That taco rocked! The other two sucked. The fish was cut into small pieces (thin and long) and was overcooked to the point where its consistency resembled chicken breast. They used the same steak in the taco as they did in the quesadilla. Not surprisingly, I had the same opinion as the kid.
There are better taquerias in STL. I will go elsewhere…

Probably this would have been a three star review had I not eaten at Tejana last week. This place blew it out of the water! The creepy factor was way less, and the al pastor was way better.
Chips and salsa were chips and salsa — not the best chips, I prefer the light and crispy ones and these were a little heavy for me. They brought us three squeeze bottles of salsa and all three tasted really fresh, plus it was fun to squirt them on the chips — I’m easily amused I guess.
I had three tacos al pastor in soft corn tortillas. The meat was pretty greasy, I tried to leave the ends open and be careful to drip on the plate. It was really flavorful meat though and I enjoyed it a lot.
Service was friendly, but a little slow because they were very busy. I should also mention that my tacos were $ 1.89 each so my total lunch was around $ 6 before tip. Huge bargain and I will definitely be back!