Everybody is familiar with Boston’s Italian claim to fame, the North End, and its streets teeming with cat calls of delicious and memorable meals. The flip side is that the North End has become a sight seer’s destination to the point where penny-pinching locals often avoid the area in fear of lines out the door and high prices to boot. It’s easy to avoid the tourist-central restaurants with a little guidance and discover the best place for a quick lunch or casual dinner.

Dino’s Restaurant is a small corner spot with reasonable prices and massive portions with windows for walls to watch the foot traffic roll by.

Dino’s is bringing subs to a new level with a consistency you pray for. My lunch staple is the 16 inch Italian sub ($9) on fresh, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside French bread. Its sliced in half and drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil then layered with Genoa salami, mortadella, sweet capicola, and provolone cheese. The ingenious oil and vinegar on the bottom seeps into the cold cuts and between the onions, pickles, and hots everything meshes to one miraculous experience.

Hot and cold sub options are all made on the same 16 inch bread with nothing exceeding $11-even the overstuffed and doctored up Cheese Steak Italiano with individualized extra toppings like mushrooms or peppers.

Eat in or take out, the pasta dishes and specialties are big on size and taste. The traditional Chicken, Ziti, and Broccoli ($11) in a white wine cream sauce is a bowl full of nostalgia that even I can’t finish in one sitting. One of their best specialties is the Veal Cacciatore ($13) served over ziti in a robust marinara sauce and perfectly sized peppers, onions, and mushrooms.
Aside from subs and pasta Dino’s offers vegetable, chicken, and shrimp risottos ($13.95-$15.95) that are so rich and creamy they taste like they have been simmered and tended to for hours. Dinners include Eggplant Parmesan ($11.95) that is layered with cheese galore and Chicken or Veal Marsala ($13.95) with capicola, which is a welcomed rendition to the conventional prosciutto, white mushrooms in a succulent marsala wine sauce. All dinners are served with an abundance of ziti.

In a carb-centric world this may seem odd but the salads are nothing to shy away from. The grilled Portabella Salad ($9) with roasted red peppers over romaine lettuce is fresh and with just enough zing in the balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing.
Dino’s is in a prime location smack in the middle of the North End and directly across the street from everyone’s late night Mecca, Bova’s. Grab something to go, bring it back to work for lunch, and it will surely carry over to be just as delicious the second time around for dinner. Maybe even snag a cupcake for desert on the way out.

Dino’s
141 Salem St
North End, Boston
(617) 227-1991

www.dinosboston.net/