Eating off the Hill: Mexican/Korean fusion at Barrio Coreano

After many campaign meals or biryani and chicken karahi, I was ready for a cuisine change when I met my sister for dinner after the election before heading back to Ottawa. At her recommendation, we went for Mexican/Korean Fusion at Barrio Coreano on Bloor, between Christie and Bathurst.

A quick perusal of the menu did leave the view that it skewed more to the Mexican side of the equation, which I was perfectly fine with. The Korean element seemed to largely be adding kimchi to some of the dishes. As I'm not much of a kimchi fan, I passed on those dishes.

They offer tacos priced individually or for three, and as a fiscal conservative I was initially attracted to the bulk discount. Trying to behave myself post-campaign though, and wanting to keep desert as an option, I decided to stick with two.

For an appy, we shared an order of guacamole and chips. I'm not one of those folks that go crazy for avocados; but it was tasty and I had to work to not just go all-in on the chips and spoil my dinner.

I choose two tacos, one crispy and one soft. The first to come was the crispy Braised Short Rib, which the menu described as braised beef in ancho-guajillo with mole rojo. It was tasty, though the beef was unevenly distributed. I thought at first that it was light on the beef but in a good way, but then found a lot of beef bunched up at the end, messing up the ratio. It was tasty and well-seasoned beef though, and the veggies fresh and crisp.

The beef was my favourite of the two. Next was the soft Fried Chihuahua Cheese, which the menu describes as battered chihuahua cheese and tofu salsita with habanero. I was excited for this one, but it underwhelmed. The cheese wasn't hot and gooey and lacked in flavour. It was just a taco of meh.

My sister and I shared desert -- churros poutine. (I did most of the heavy lifting). Several soft/crispy cinnamon churros in a caramel sauce. It was just ok -- I felt like it should have been something more flavourful given the doubtless substantial investment of calories I was making.

Anyway, worth visiting again to try other tacos. The beef I would repeat, but my other selections would be new.

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