Minh La stoops slightly, leaning in closer to put the finishing touches on a slew of burritos he’s preparing for the panini grill on the cutting board below. His chef’s-coat sleeves are rolled up about the elbows, revealing a forearm emblazoned with the name of his funky little shop at Greenwood and Queen — Chino Locos — in florid Latino-gangsta-style script; one of many souvenirs La picked up during a recent sojourn to Mexico. The young chef continues to make small talk with a couple of regulars as he works, chatting about food, art, the genesis of the Kanye West track playing over the sound system — whatever’s going. There is never any doubt, however, about where La’s true attention is here: namely on the food. And the food he’s making is, even by the multicultural culinary mish-mash standards of Toronto, somewhat of an oddity.

Taking one of the many wraps he has going, for example (all 12-inch whole-wheat flour tortillas started with a thick smear of creamy guacamole), La piles on a whack of soft-fried chow-mein noodles and a mound of slow-roasted pork before finishing it with a dash of fresh lime juice, a sprinkle of vibrantly hued edamame beans and a measured dose of green-onion-and-ginger relish. Another, dubbed Paradise Vegan ($6.99), is filled with a stir-fry of
luscious Asian eggplant, shiitake mushrooms, peppers, glass noodles and tofu in chipotle-black-bean sauce straight from the pan. In other words, these aren’t your typical burritos.

La, who left his sous-chef gig at Blowfish last November to start this venture along with partner in crime Victor Su have a name for them. The first-time restaurateurs are calling them Asian-style burritos. I’ve got another moniker for them: damn tasty. It may take a moment to get your brain around the idea of Chinese food in a tortilla shell, but it doesn’t take long for your taste buds to follow once you do.

The Basa fish ($5.99), which sees a goodly amount of meaty white fish sautéed with peppers and matched nicely with chow mein and tender black turtle beans, has me hooked right from the start. Finished with some of the aforementioned green-onion-ginger relish (made by soaking the title ingredients in a pot of sesame and pure olive oil), this wrap is crisp, oddly light in texture and downright filling. And running along a more traditional vein, the seared rib-eye ($5.99) paired with rustic rice, smoked-jalapeno-black-bean sauce and a couple pinches of grated cheddar (50 cents extra) for good measure, easily earns its menu title of “Off Da Hook.”

Both the pork ($5.99) and the veggie wrap suffer somewhat from package steam on the short trip home, the tortilla taking on more of a San Francisco–style texture than the standard Hogtown crisp. And the tofu manages to firm up a little too much as it cools, providing a consistency that is less succulent “steak” (as described on the menu) than spongy rubber puck. They do manage to taste good enough to be decent nonetheless, unlike the dessert burritos ($3.50). The Chino boys would do well to think outside the flour wrap on this one. The caramelized peach, blueberry and crushed nut with dulce de leche filling sounds promising enough, but the results don’t do the ingredients justice, with savoury fighting sweet in a battle where your taste buds are the ultimate losers.

Having been open just over two months, La admits that the concept is a work-in-progress. He’s still trying new things, working influences he picked up in Mexico into his daily specials. He and Su, along with a third partner, Johnnie Chan, are already thinking big for the future, though, planning to branch out into North York if all continues to go well in the east end. Given the value, taste and originality shown on my visit, uptowners should be expecting their own Chino Locos soon enough.