Mis Trucos, the maiden restaurant of local chef Kris Barnholden, aims to fill a substantial hole in the Vancouver marketplace.
There will surely come a day when Vancouver gets a proper Spanish tapas bar. In the meantime, we'll have to content ourselves with Mis Trucos, a casual new Mediterranean restaurant with upscale aspirations that unfortunately, perhaps prematurely, stretch the limits of its challenging kitchen setup and plain DIY decor.
Hidden behind a Davie Street florist on the second floor of a 1920s character home, the stark, modern space does exude a certain underground charm. Low slanted ceilings and snug seating nooks (which include a pocket-sized lounge area next to a brick fireplace and a shadowy three-tiered wooden deck out back) make it feel as if you've wandered into a private house party - on a college campus. The plastic chairs, fold-up stools, dangling, bare light bulbs and vast expanses of white on white scream Ikea starter-kit showroom.
To be fair, Mis Trucos is Kris Barnholden's maiden restaurant. And in a city where it seems like every second restaurant is trying to fob off its small plates as genuine tapas-sized snacks, the former Parkside sous-chef smartly identified a gaping hole in the marketplace.
Keep in mind, however, that this is by no means a cheap hole-in-the-wall tavern where slices of bread and cheese are slung over glasses to keep the flies out of the sherry. (In Spanish, tapar means "to cover" and this is said to be how the cuisine originated.) Although the prices on individual items are relatively low, most are $7 and $12, the portions are definitely minuscule and the bill can climb surprisingly high.
Mis Trucos, Spanish for "my tricks," has nothing to do with the after-hours shenanigans that might take place in the gay bathhouse down the street. The restaurant is named in homage to the famous Basque chef Juan Mari Arzak, who scribbles this signature notation in the margins of his recipe books.
In his own modest way, Mr. Barnholden is trying to emulate his favourite chef by infusing rustic foods with contemporary twists and French refinement. Take Portuguese pork chop with manila clams, for instance. At Mis Trucos, this standard peasant dish is disassembled into succulent cubes of braised pork belly ($12) and refortified with lively lashes of roasted red pepper and pickled artichoke.
Piperade ($7) bears little resemblance to the garlicky Gascon vegetable casserole traditionally served with poached or scrambled eggs. Here, the dish takes a gently poached egg, slowly coddled for 45 minutes in a water-bath immersion circulator, and slides the fragile pocket of oozy yolk just begging to be popped over a thinly sliced tangle of salty Serrano ham.
For dessert, bright orange sheets of gummy mango are rolled into a mascarpone-filled cannelloni ($6), strewn with honey and shreds of mint.
There is some sophisticated cooking coming out of this kitchen, no doubt. Then again, many of the dishes are just simple and straightforward.
As creamy and hearty as Mr. Barnholden's bacalao brandade ($7) may be, I can't say this small pot of reconstituted salt cod and potato dip is worthy of the dramatic entry - replete with flourishing hand waves and gravely intoned descriptions - with which the server presents it.
And even though the velvety risotto is steeped with a high-quality white truffle puree and stirred with thick chunks of lobster, the teacup-sized portion doesn't justify its $16 cost.
As the meal progresses, I detect a textural theme to the menu. It all lacks crispness, char and a good chewy bite. This is because the kitchen has no hood vent or gas. Everything is cooked with the sous vide water bath, induction burners and a convection oven.
The apparatus limitations obviously force the chef to be inventive. But he could also be a little less stingy. Grilled octopus with new potatoes in a ripely saucy San Marzano tomato stew ($12) cries out for a big basket of crusty bread to mop it up with - especially when the octopus is more firm than the potatoes.
On a positive note, the drinks are excellent. Jonathan James, a former bartender at Uva and Chow, mixes up tasty $8 cocktails. The refreshing honey dew-licked Cohombro o Pepino is as "cool as cucumber." And the Spanish Snapper, a smoked paprika and red-wine variation on the Bloody Mary, goes down swell with Gilda, a salty white anchovy wrapped around a skewered Kalamata olive and green pickled pepper.
At only $1.75 a pop, these bite-sized snacks could quickly become addictive. I don't expect to fill up on them. But after spending $95 on eight dishes shared between two people (not including drinks or tip), I never thought I'd be going home still hungry. That's one crafty trick.
Mis Trucos: 1141 Davie St., 604-566-3960
Alexandra Gill