At my house Friday is an eagerly anticipated weekly asterisk on the culinary calendar. It’s a night of gustatory variety and sharing and the city is undergoing a tapas explosion tailor-made for our little pre-weekend appetizer ritual. Tonight my wife and I are settling into a booth at Tango Bistro a small-plate restaurant in the Smugglers’ Inn building on MacLeod Trail.
The restaurant is located in what used to be Smuggler’s wine room and its interior design is worth going on about. The room is shaped like an asymmetrical A-frame done in dark wood and tile with a wall of clear glass bottles at its entryway. At the room’s heart is a large central gas fireplace with a silver hood. Tango offers inviting seating options to suit a variety (tonight’s signature word) of moods. There are stools at the bar rows of low booths at the front and back bench-style table seating and smaller high tables.
Our server points out all the wines on the menu (which is lengthy and upside down to him) currently available by the glass. Duly impressed we nonetheless order a bottle of Cave Creek Riesling ($35) then a round of tapatizers (I’m so giddy with the menu’s diversity I’m making up words!) the first of which arrives post-haste.
The prawn and scallop ceviché ($9.50) is neatly presented with plenty of cilantro chopped onion and a spoonful of avocado purée. Ribbons of fried plantain add flair. It’s a good dish though it could use a bit more zip.
The meal only gets better. Pulled pork sliders ($8.50) come with a small bowl of double-smoked bacon baked beans. The three mini-burger buns are golden glazed making for deliciously sweet and sticky fingers. The pork is almost candied yet not overly sweet. The beans are deeply savoury. I could eat an entrée-sized bowl of these things.
The next dish is better still. The roasted pear and Gorgonzola flatbread ($9) is thinly topped with pesto pine nuts and vincotto. The round bread has been sliced and spread diagonally on a long plate. Not ostentatious it’s so delicious my wife and I pause on first bite to enthuse about it. The grainy ingredients are spread thin in a cheesy fruity and magical combo.
Our server returns as was his suggestion to see what if anything we’d like to try as a second round. The spirit of Appetizer Fridays and the tapatastic (whee!) dishes so far demand further indulgence.
Turducken skewers ($9) are named for the Thanksgiving nightmare that involves stuffing a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey. An adventure in haute trailer-park eating its inclusion on the menu gets points for sheer culinary balls but it tastes like fried baloney. Three meat lollipops are made of large circular slices of bird loaf wrapped in what appears to be turkey bacon. Presented on wooden skewers they’re a pretty golden brown but add credence to the variety-themed saying “They can’t all be gems.”
Beef short-rib poutine rides to the rescue. Thin fries keep their crisp edge to the last though ladled with velvety gravy and perfectly melted cheese curds. Chunks of grainy melt-in-your-mouth beef hide below.
Dessert concludes the meal with yet another exercise in variety. We share four petite desserts ($2.50 each) on one plate. The combination looks right. Three small glasses filled with creamy desserts are served with “truffle pops.” The latter are hard chocolate popsicles with creamy chocolate centres served stick-up in a splash of raspberry coulis. These decadent choco-exclamations are just plain fun. Of the cups tres leche is the creamiest pineapple lime the fruitiest and Rocky Road with its heavy fudge taste the thickest. I like the laidback tres leche best but the pineapple lime has great sugary tang.
Chalk up another win for Appetizer Fridays. Tango Bistro has won me over with its tight package of novelty variety and great taste served expediently by friendly food-savvy staff.
