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Eating and sliding through Museo del Taco
Tijuana's "Taco Museum" is really a place for snacks and amusement
Adobada tacos at the Museo Del Taco
"It's not a taqueria," insists the web site for Museo del Taco. Except of course it is. To even reach the ticket window of Tijuana's "Taco Museum," you must first pass its bucking taco — like a mechanical bull, except the bull is a taco — and then through its on-site taco shop.
A 2024 addition to Avenida Revolucción
When I visit on a Wednesday afternoon, no one seems terribly interested in riding the taco — least of all me — but it does do the trick of catching my attention as I cruise the ever-evolving Avenida Revolución for the first time in far too long — long enough that I'm feeling like a tourist again. To atone for long absence, I pay the roughly $11 (230 pesos) to enter this campy taco museum.
But before I go in, I'll have to change into a pair of the ridiculous, neon-colored, grippy socks included in the price of admission. The museum is split into as many as nine sequential "exhibits" (depending how strictly you define the term), and for reasons that eventually become apparent, shoes must be stashed in lockers provided near the entrance. If not the first, this is the surest indication that word "museum" does not apply to the Museo del Taco in quite the same say as it does to the Guggenheim or the Louvre.
Socks required at Museo Del Taco
The first room I enter invites me to rest my head on a burlap pillow sitting on a hardwood floor and then get periodically blasted with fog machine while I watch a short film projected onto the ceiling. The video shows a man explaining to his granddaughter how best to arrange charcoal in a grill — shot from the charcoal's point of view.
By the end of the tour, I will have had a chance to enjoy a taco's perspective by climbing into a large open mouth and then slipping down a "throat" — a slide spiraling into darkness — before landing in a pink ball pit of a stomach.
The beef "exhibit" at Tijuana's taco museum
Along the way, I visit rooms, each serving as an exhibit dedicated to an individual taco ingredient: tortillas, onions, avocados, salsa, beef, and pork. Some are decidedly family-friendly (there's more than one ball pit room), while others are designed more for social media posts (the "beef" room is just a cow statue photo op, with pink fur-trimmed cowboy hats provided).
The most hands-on exhibit invites you to make your own corn tortillas. The process is made easier by a basket of masa doughballs and cellophaned tortilla presses. The most museum-like room features a mural/map labeled with photographs of Tijuana's most heralded taquerias, from Tacos El Frances in Playas de Tijuana to Tacos El Franc in Zona Rio.
The hands-on tortilla exhibit
Take note of the taco shops featured here, all of which are worth a visit. That is, if the museum tour hasn't created such a craving that you find you must eat before you leave. A wide and aromatic variety of Tijuana style tacos are available here to ease your hunger — not just the carne asada and adobada implied by the museum exhibits. I am pleased to find newer, cheesy taco derivatives including vampiros and volcanes.
I go for an adobada special: two for $2.50. Warmly seasoned rotisserie pork, smothered in guacamole, with a chunk of pineapple. Tacos don't need to be museum quality to go down easy.
I might wish for a more detailed history behind the provenance of Tijuana's famed taco stands, or more substance to the salsa exhibit than a chili-themed room of funhouse mirrors. But what this museum offers is no worse than zonkey photos as an excuse to go eat TJ tacos. Next visit, I'll stop by a new favorite, which is making ribeye street tacos a thing. And I won't wait so long to go back.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Eating and sliding through Museo del Taco
Tijuana's "Taco Museum" is really a place for snacks and amusement
Eating and sliding through Museo del Taco
Tijuana's "Taco Museum" is really a place for snacks and amusement
Adobada tacos at the Museo Del Taco
"It's not a taqueria," insists the web site for Museo del Taco. Except of course it is. To even reach the ticket window of Tijuana's "Taco Museum," you must first pass its bucking taco — like a mechanical bull, except the bull is a taco — and then through its on-site taco shop.
A 2024 addition to Avenida Revolucción
When I visit on a Wednesday afternoon, no one seems terribly interested in riding the taco — least of all me — but it does do the trick of catching my attention as I cruise the ever-evolving Avenida Revolución for the first time in far too long — long enough that I'm feeling like a tourist again. To atone for long absence, I pay the roughly $11 (230 pesos) to enter this campy taco museum.
But before I go in, I'll have to change into a pair of the ridiculous, neon-colored, grippy socks included in the price of admission. The museum is split into as many as nine sequential "exhibits" (depending how strictly you define the term), and for reasons that eventually become apparent, shoes must be stashed in lockers provided near the entrance. If not the first, this is the surest indication that word "museum" does not apply to the Museo del Taco in quite the same say as it does to the Guggenheim or the Louvre.
Socks required at Museo Del Taco
The first room I enter invites me to rest my head on a burlap pillow sitting on a hardwood floor and then get periodically blasted with fog machine while I watch a short film projected onto the ceiling. The video shows a man explaining to his granddaughter how best to arrange charcoal in a grill — shot from the charcoal's point of view.
By the end of the tour, I will have had a chance to enjoy a taco's perspective by climbing into a large open mouth and then slipping down a "throat" — a slide spiraling into darkness — before landing in a pink ball pit of a stomach.
The beef "exhibit" at Tijuana's taco museum
Along the way, I visit rooms, each serving as an exhibit dedicated to an individual taco ingredient: tortillas, onions, avocados, salsa, beef, and pork. Some are decidedly family-friendly (there's more than one ball pit room), while others are designed more for social media posts (the "beef" room is just a cow statue photo op, with pink fur-trimmed cowboy hats provided).
The most hands-on exhibit invites you to make your own corn tortillas. The process is made easier by a basket of masa doughballs and cellophaned tortilla presses. The most museum-like room features a mural/map labeled with photographs of Tijuana's most heralded taquerias, from Tacos El Frances in Playas de Tijuana to Tacos El Franc in Zona Rio.
The hands-on tortilla exhibit
Take note of the taco shops featured here, all of which are worth a visit. That is, if the museum tour hasn't created such a craving that you find you must eat before you leave. A wide and aromatic variety of Tijuana style tacos are available here to ease your hunger — not just the carne asada and adobada implied by the museum exhibits. I am pleased to find newer, cheesy taco derivatives including vampiros and volcanes.
I go for an adobada special: two for $2.50. Warmly seasoned rotisserie pork, smothered in guacamole, with a chunk of pineapple. Tacos don't need to be museum quality to go down easy.
I might wish for a more detailed history behind the provenance of Tijuana's famed taco stands, or more substance to the salsa exhibit than a chili-themed room of funhouse mirrors. But what this museum offers is no worse than zonkey photos as an excuse to go eat TJ tacos. Next visit, I'll stop by a new favorite, which is making ribeye street tacos a thing. And I won't wait so long to go back.
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