TORO! TORO!

Fine. This place is only called toro. (not in reference to the fish, in japanese, but the bull, in spanish). And this being a Spanish Tapas restaurant/bar, I thought i'd invoke what the Spanish call out during a bullfight. But back to the review. Last night Arti, Karishma and I had dinner at Ken Oringer's new tapas bar in the South End. Now, for those of you who don't know, Ken Origner is one of those Boston celebrity chefs. He also co-owns Clio and Uni in the Eliot Hotel. This new resturant just opened a month or two ago, and I heard it was actually affordable (unlike the other two places), so I definetly wanted to try it out. Plus, it was cool to actually see the chef/owner serving ppl and working at his new place.

So when Arti and I arrived at the restaurant, at 6:15ish, there were some people in the restaurants, but still a good number of tables left. They wouldn't seat us until the whole party arrived and they don't take reservations, so we waited at the stainless steel bar where we both got a glass of cava (a spanish sparkling white wine). I enjoyed my glass of cava, but it was a little sweet, though arti enjoyed it much more than i did. She didn't like her glass of rose cava which was more dry. We also had time to check out the place. It has nice exposed beams, brick walls, high ceilings and big windows. Yet it was still dark inside. I definelty liked it. Oh, and it had an open kitchen and I like those. Unfortunately, very soon after we arrived, the restaurant and bar filled up very quickly. When Karishma got there, we were told it'd be a 45 minute wait for a table. (which sucked since we'd already been in the place for like 20 minutes) So my advice is to get there early and make sure your whole party is present.

Luckily, we were able to snag two extra seats at the bar that were right next to ours, so all three of us were able to sit there and have dinner. Sometimes I actually enjoy sitting at the bar more than at a table. Here, it was sort of mixed. Our bartender was very friendly, but he was the only one there. So he not only had to handle drinks, but also serve all the ppl crowded around the bar and we were neglected for various periods of time. Not as bad as Pomodoro, but not great either. The food made up for this though. And here's what Arti and I shared:

we started with these fried green peppers. they're seasoned with just sea salt and are totally tasty. apparently 1 in 10 of them are supposed to be hot, but i had a hot one and it really is a very mild heat. Definetly try these. I almost wanted to get a second order.

Then we got these potatoes. Which are fried and served ontop of a tomato sauce. But the best part of the dish was dipping it in the delicious garlic ailioli. sorry for the blurry pic.

Ok. this next dish was a little disappointing for me. It's a dish of mushrooms served with an egg and some foam. The foam is tasteless, but it's supposed to look like the white of the egg, get it? at any rate, i think the mushrooms could've been more flavorful, and when they arrived at the table, they were just warm.

Next up was the grilled corn. I think this was my favorite dish of the night. Not as good as the grilled corn from Cafe Havana in soho, but still really tasty, with the hint of chili, lime and cheese.

And our final tapas was smoked duck. Which actually tasted like it'd also been fried, due to the crispiness of the skin. I also really liked this.We finished off our meal with three orders of churros with chocolate. As in fried dough with powdered sugar and a side of chocolate sauce for dipping. I think this was the most disappointing dish of the night. If they were going for spanish or mexican style churros, the batter should've been much denser. And i wouldn't have minded some cinnamon sugar. If they were going for a little version of the churro, then it should've been much lighter. Basically, these tasted like the frying oil temp was a bit too low, causing the batter to absorb too much oil and become a bit heavy. They were tasty, I just didn't love it, and don't think i'd be getting again.

So my favorites were the peppers, duck and corn. The price of the tapas ranged from $3-$12, though the vast majority stayed in the $6-$9 dollar range, so the standard tapas price range. I think that's pretty nice, given the setting, the famous chef and quality of food. I'll admit that the plates tended towards the smaller side, but nothing completely unreasonable. If you don't drink, I think you can still have a satisfying meal in the hi-2os range. And i certainly look foward to returning and trying some of the plates that I missed.