At long last, we finally made it down to one of Joule’s Urban Barbecue days. Given how much we love Joule, it was just a matter of time.

Joule’s owner-chefs, Seif and Rachel, began this series last summer, where every Sunday they’re open from noon until 8 pm, with live music and a different food theme. Normally the food here is a fun riff on Korean cuisine with French influences, but the Urban BBQ gives them a chance to play with all sorts of different menus. Last week the theme was “New England Crab Boil,” which didn’t really appeal to us, but last night the theme was Tunisia. We made a special effort to be in town for this one.

The mood is casual, with a self-serve drinks counter, a limited menu and silverware in little beach pails on the tables. We stopped in shortly before five, and the place was packed full of happy Wallingford residents and soccer fans.

We started with an order of mechouia, which was described as a Tunisian caponata. The summery vegetable mixture was piled onto two thin crostini with a large green salad on the side. It made a great starter: fresh and bright tasting but very light.

Since the plates at Joule are fairly small, we ordered three more things: the leg of lamb, couscous with roasted cauliflower, and a turnover filled with ground beef and an egg, called a brik. The brik was really the star of the evening, being crispy on the outside and filled with soft, spiced beef that oozed chile-flavored juices, enhanced with barely-set egg yolk. I think I need to learn how to make it at home. Anyone have a recipe?

The lamb was nicely done, quite rare, and served with a small pile of preserved lemon chutney and some spiced yogurt.

The couscous and cauliflower was very good, and excellent with the lamb. It came with dukkah, which is usually a mixture of chopped hazelnuts, herbs and spices. Since I’m allergic to hazelnuts, the chefs very kindly made a fresh dukkah for me with sliced almonds instead.

The wines on the counter were mostly French and very food-friendly, and I appreciated being able to just take a small amount instead of committing to an entire glass. We had the perfect amount of food, too. Desserts looked interesting, especially the Sno-Cones, but we decided to get home to a quart of ripe strawberries that needed attention. Maybe we’ll just have to make it down to another Urban BBQ.

Ever since our first visit to Joule, we’ve been anxiously awaiting a chance to go again. Honestly, wouldn’t you want to patronize a place that offers bacon butter on a baguette? I have to admit, though, we didn’t order that this visit. Had to leave something for next time.

This was a surprise dinner out – my parents got last-minute tickets to Aida and we all decided to go out together. Four people turned out to be a great number for Joule, since we got to try a lot of different things, but each dish split four ways quite easily. We drank a bottle of very affordable verdejo and had a great time.

We started with two salads: the “Bloody Mary” with tomatoes and pickled okra, and a mizuna salad with buttermilk dressing, roasted grapes, sliced radishes and whole mint leaves. Both salads were bright and acidic, very refreshing on a hot afternoon.

We had to try the octopus – after all, we’ve been getting it everywhere else this year. This version was good – a little chewy, but with a great charry grilled flavor, and the tips of the tentacles were nice and crispy. The celery pesto wasn’t particularly assertive, which I liked.

Kalamata olive gnocchi with sliced almonds and sweet red pepper. Yum. Best in small doses – this might have killed me if I’d ordered it by myself.

The pièce de résistance: wild boar spare ribs, beautifully flavored and tender, with a collard green slaw that was love at first bite for me. I think the white vegetables on top were turnips, but we had some disagreement about that. They were really good, whatever they were.

Along with the main dishes, we also had an order of rice with chile-soy sauce and a little pot of cucumber kim chee, which was amazingly delicious. Next time we should order more of that.

The desserts sounded very exciting, but Jon was the only one who ordered any: anise ice cream, with a very plain, non-sweet wafer cookie. I was too full to have much, but it was very good. The rest of us shared a French press of really excellent coffee.

My parents made it off to their opera with plenty of time to spare – did I mention the service was really first-rate? The chefs also are really nice – they truly seem to connect to their customers. I wish there was a place like Joule closer to home, but in the meantime we’ll just have to keep coming down here.

Last Friday we were in Wallingford with no particular idea of where we would have dinner. Or rather, I had ten different ideas of where we might have dinner, but no reservations had been made and I wasn’t craving anything in particular. I’ve been seeing some intriguing reviews of a place called Joule, so when I caught sight of it tucked in beside the Teahouse Kuan Yin, we thought we’d give it a try. It features small plates with a combination of French and Korean flavors and techniques, which sounded fascinating.

Given the amount of press the place has gotten (the chefs are semifinalists for two James Beard awards!), I thought it unlikely we’d get in without a reservation, but there were just two seats left at the bar when we arrived. The hostess and the waiter were very gracious, and we settled ourselves happily. The bar looks over the spotlessly clean open kitchen, and we were able to watch much of the food prep, although it wasn’t on stage the way it was at Sel Gris. The mood felt casual, and the chefs seemed relaxed and comfortable, occasionally coming over to the bar and asking the customers’ opinions on various dishes.

The first thing to arrive was a little dish of something handed to us by the chef. Even after she explained what it was (a deep fried rice flour bun?) I still wasn’t sure I could identify it, but it was like…the ultimate fried thing. It was crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, beautifully greasy with a good amount of salt and hot pepper. Lordy. Good thing there were only three pieces.

Our first dish was a salad composed of halved, boiled eggs, soaked in soy and topped with a sprinkle of scallions and tiny fried anchovies, accompanied with a swirl of mustardy dressing. I have to say I adored this (did someone say fried anchovy?), although it was intensely salty. It reminded me strongly of the delicious sludge left in the bottom of the bowl after eating soba with boiled egg pieces and lots of soy sauce.

The second dish was a small pan of shiitake mushroom lasagna. It was rich and creamy, the pasta was delicate and tender, and the pictures we took are absolutely hideous so you can’t see them.

Next up, J got a short rib. This proved amusing, since as soon as the order was made we could see the short rib get placed on the grill, where it sat quietly next to a pair of whole fish while we ate our first courses. When it finally arrived it was juicy, with a full beefy flavor – but what really blew J away was the little tangle of enoki mushrooms with whole mustard seeds. Not only was the flavor excitingly pungent, but the texture of both the mushrooms and the seeds really “popped” in the mouth. Very cool.

While J polished off his short rib, I got a bowl of spicy beef soup with leeks and creme fraiche. Oh my, this was good. After two bites it shot up onto my Best Soup of All Time list. It was spicy, creamy and salty, with bits of incredibly tender beef and some sort of julienned vegetable lurking at the bottom of the bowl.

At this point we were mostly full, but feeling a certain lack of vegetable, since we hadn’t ordered any of the side pickles or salads. We asked for an order of wilted spinach, which arrived quickly in a little pot with a pool of hazelnut-scented cream. It was a very welcome foil to all the salty, spicy meat. Next time we’ll know to order pickles or vegetables with the other dishes.

We looked fondly at the dessert menu, but we had a concert to get to. We are absolutely coming back to Joule, though – I need to know what everything else on the menu tastes like!