Restaurant review: Barque Smokehouse

                                            
                                                                    Barque Smokehouse
                                                                   299 Roncesvalles Ave.
                                                                       Toronto, Ontario

Meat, meat and more meat at Barque

First I might warn vegetarians, this smokey smokey smokehouse (like there is literally a giant smoker in the kitchen) is not the most friendly place for you, and actually, I may as well add the server didn't exactly make it the most friendly atmosphere for any of us. The question I'm left with is: did the down home, down right tasty BBQ make up for it?

Barque is a bright, clean and stylish joint (not what  you'd  typically expect of a BBQ place) that was bustling on a Thursday night. For this reason, reservations are recommended. A long wooded space is flanked by the bar with a massive chalkboard on one side, a wall with wooden shelves holding rows of preserves, and seating by the window on the other. It probably holds 50-75 people and it seemed pretty full from the get go. Amidst all this business, it was difficult to find, or even discern a host, so we had to find our fellow diner on our own at one of the butcher block thick high tables near a window.

When we were seated chatting away, our socially awkward hipster server came over and asked us if we had a chance to look at the drink menu (standard enough) but when a friend asked about a certain drink, he proceeded to hover, listing off every single drink on the menu sitting right in front of us, with pauses between each of their signature cocktails waiting for us to be impressed. This took about five minutes longer than it needed to. Then we ordered beer and wine.

After he brought our drinks, again we're chatting catching up, he whispers to me in a comrade-like tone "sooooo, are we ready to talk about the food?" I look around, no one has looked at the menu and say, "no sorry." He gets assertive: "well I have to talk about the food now." Okay dude, then don't ask like we're buddies if you're gonna do it your way anyway.

Moving along, we ordered the Barque plate to share, a great choice for nibbling for $10, the toasty almonds and cashews were smokey,just as expected, and came with standard, but plump olives, three pieces of fried chicken nibblers (which I didn't get to try, but really who puts three of anything on a sampler plate that is clearly not for one person), about five pita wedges and some chunky, garlicky hummus.

To get a true array of tasty BBQ, Joe and I opted for the sampler for two  ---I love this idea of being able to choose a few different things! It was a good value with a choice of three proteins and three sides for $40. We went with brisket, baby back ribs, and two competition chicken thighs with grilled asparagus, squash (?) gnocchi and Caesar salad.

Smoke flavours abounded in the flavourful meat. The chicken was the best, and most moist, but a little red close to the bone. The brisket was on the dry side, but still pulled apart with a fork. The ribs were dry and spicy-- liked the spice, but I am a fan of saucier ribs.

As for the sides, none of them really stood out. The Caesar was bland, the best part however was the sweet candied bacon crumbled in. Need to remember to try this recipe. The gnocchi in cream sauce had a punch of thyme flavour, but the small dumplings themselves were definitely not squash.

Back to the service, our waiter forgot our friend's side of corn, making him just equal parts over bearing and aloof- possibly the worst combo in a server. Since we were a group of five and divvied up our bill five ways, he let us know he was going to double check what we each paid to make sure it was right. I am sure servers all do this, but to flat out tell us that seemed a little rude.

I know BBQ is really trendy in Toronto right now, and Barque was definitely at the top of my list of places to try. The meat is what makes it --the ambiance is nice too -- but if you're not down for some good honkin big slabs of meat, I wouldn't recommend the place based on the service or non-meat choices.