Located within the upstairs of the Monarch Tavern, I was intrigued into Baju because Jason Rees of the Pork Ninjas has been running shop since Caplansky bowed out. I tried Pork Ninjas pulled pork a few years back at the Depanneur on College Street, and it was fantastic, so decided to see what the deal was here.
First, lets talk beer though. The Monarch Tavern has what could likely be the best craft beer selection in the Little Italy area. A lovely selection of options across all flavours and beer types, served in proper 20oz pint glasses.
On to the food. The first thing I tried was the Curry Potato Salad and I was thinking to myself how it was an interesting flavour combination and we were off to a good start. The ribs were also decent, and they have a variety of sauces at the table to work with in adding additional flavours. I'd say that the Kansas City BBQ sauce was the best. French fries were good too. But then after those items things went downhill. The smoked wings were actually insanely smokey. Like distractingly smokey to be lacking in actual chicken flavour. The Moink Balls (bacon wrapped meatballs) were extremely salty. And the weird thing was it wasnt the bacon that made them salty - the actual beef meatballs were the flawed item. Lastly, the pickle chips were just plain bad.
Despite the hit and miss nature of the food, I'd say the portions were adequate in size... So we left with full bellies, a nice buzz from the delicious beer selection, and not a huge dent in the wallet. So I'd be hard pressed to not give this place the 3 star review.