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| - Barque (Bark), the newish BBQ restaurant in Roncesvalles (which happens to be in the building that my Polish extended family own) has open to critical acclaim. But is it as good as everyone says?
It is. Probably better than you can imagine.
Arrived on a Friday night early (6pm) sans reservation. We tried to get one, but were told by a surly hostess that they were full. Decided to try anyways. Walked up to the hostess desk, asked about a table, and were told it would be at least two hours (somewhat rudely). The hostess was super young, like maybe 18, and I could tell it was likely her first part-time job. Probably not the greatest strategy for a newly opened, super in-demand popular restaurant. There is a way to tell paying customers who want to eat in your restaurant that they have to wait, her tone/body language and delivery was not the way. It was kind of smug.
Regardless we put down our names and decided to walk down Roncesvalles. About five minutes away we called Local Kitchen to see if they had a table, we didn't see the worth in waiting two hours, and our experience at the hostess desk turned us off. Continued down Roncey and received a call 5 minutes later from....Barque. A table had miraculously opened up (no more than 15 minutes from when we were told we'd have to wait 2 hours). Feeling lucky, we walked back.
And I'm glad we did. Because the food and service once we sat down made up for our earlier issue.
Started with their housemade BBQ popcorn (which is brought out in a tiny tin bucket). Ordered drinks, I stuck to beer, my dining companion went for their Cesear ($10), which comes rimmed with candied bacon. It was pretty delicious.
For a starter we shared one of the specials, a tomato, arugula, smoked peach, caprese salad ($9). To die for. The peaches were smoky, sweet, with just a hint of char. I've been making BBQ'ed peaches at home ever since.
For our main we decided to go with the BBQ sampler for two ($38). This is the greatest deal on the menu, you get to choose three out of four meats and three sides. We chose: beef brisket, beef ribs & baby back ribs for our BBQ, and the pickle plate, fries and cuban corn for our sides. The beef brisket was succulent, juicy, a bit fatty and sooo delicious. I could have eaten pounds of it. The beef ribs were melt-off-the-bone, so tasty. Best ribs I have ever had in Toronto. The baby back ribs were equally good, but my least favourite of all the meat, basically due to the fact that we left them till last and they were kinda cold. Sides were all excellent, the corn was similar to Cafe Habana's Cuban corn (see my review) but not as tasty. The fries were also very good, but the clear winner was the pickle plate (which according to our server is their least popular side). Get it, you won't be sorry.
No dessert, we could barely walk after our meal.
Just a note on service: our server was amazing, super casual yet professional, prompt with all requests and even made time for small talk about the menu. A+
Barque is now my favourite BBQ restaurant in the city. It smokes Stockyards (I likely won't ever bother going back). Try it now, if you can get a reservation :)
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