My World in Poutine

A sort of photo blog where a western Canadian gal posts about her experiences living in Québec and eating Poutine.

[myworldinpoutine]

A common problem with finding the authentic cheese to serve on your poutine is finding someplace that sells the proper fresh cheese. The cheese is a base similar to cheddar, but needs to be made fresh daily in batches to partake in its chewy squeaky goodness. The instant you chill the cheese, it's lost. Even as time marches on, the cheese will eventually lose its signature attributes. This awesome post written by the National Post explains perfectly how and why the cheese is, and how hard it is to obtain if you don't live in or near Quebec. Read on, curd lovers!

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Smoked Meat Barbecue poutine from Casse Croûte de la Pointe

Autumn seems to be in full swing, and as such one of the local “Bar Laitier”, or Ice Cream stores was winding down its run for the season and held its last day today. That called for a last minute trip.

Bar Laitier’s focus on being open when the weather isn’t Winter to sell ice cream to the masses, so they’re only open a limited time of the year. Some of them are also Casse Croûtes and sell hot foods. Casse Croûte de la Pointe just so happens to make a mean poutine.

They take some nice sweet yellow potatoes, and cut them to order which take forever to cook through. So keep that in mind if you ever visit. Sometimes after frying a bunch of onion rings, the potatoes have a faint oniony taste to them which I think is neat. Their barbecue sauce is a really decent flavour, and you can taste the chicken. It’s not as acidic as some other sauces.

And the cheese… Oh man! A huge portion of cheese, served in big chunks. And it squeaks so nicely.

They serve nice huge portions, so they’re quite popular. Although, today I had their smoked meat poutine, and the huge slices of yummy smoked meat. It pairs nicely with the sweetness of the potatoes.

It’s just a shame I won’t be able to enjoy another one until April of 2018.

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Barbecue poutine from Fromagerie Victoria.

While playing Shenmue II, it suddenly dawns on my boyfriend and I that we’re hungry, and feel like Chinese food. So what do we do? We order out for poutine from Fromagerie Victoria. XD

I grabbed a regular barbecue poutine, while the man decides he wants to try something spicy and asks to taste their spicy barbecue sauce. Holy crap! Tongue numbingly spicy. Almost like that numbing red pepper in Mapo Tofu.

Before tucking in, my boyfriend made sure to partake in a Tums Festival beforehand to try and alleviate the potential spicy and cheesy stomach ache lateron.

This location is somewhat newly opened, and they make their own cheese. Super duper big chunks of cheese and make the best squeak. They also cut their own potatoes to use instead of frozen ones and have a slight sweetness to them. And to pair them both there’s their sauce. It’s quite acidic, and sorta reminds me of warm tomato juice or something. It’s not bad, not my personal favourite though.

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Today was a sort of blah day. After an exhausting struggle with mowing the lawn, it was time for someone else to make supper tonight! And that was going to be Rôtisserie Fusée!

Tonight’s fare was a popcorn chicken poutine with barbecue sauce. As you can tell, it’s a poutine with popcorn chicken. :P

Fusée’s fries are definitely one of my favourites. I’m not sure which brand they are (they aren’t homefries), or if it’s the oil they fry them in, but they are nice and crispy with a fluffy middle. They hold their crunch fairly well while drenched in the sauce, which can be considered one of my favourite sauces as well. It’s a lot more savoury and less sweet or tart. Almost good enough to drink on its own.

Fusée’s cheese curds are also very good, hold their squeaky texture well, and are just the right size for me. Not too big, and not too small that they melt into a streaming mess.

Overall, the quantity of sauce and cheese from them really seems perfect for me. All washed down with a a Pepsi! The Quebecois drink of choice.

[myworldinpoutine]

A staple poutine around our house is the one from a local (ex) family run restaurant by the name of Le Grand Constant. It’s a Greek restaurant that once burned down, but was reborn. They serve mostly pizza, though. But they have one hell of a poutine.

I can’t say for certain just what style of sauce they use, but it’s a brown sauce with a kind of herby undertone. It’s not a beef brown sauce, but a quick ingredient check on most poutine sauces tends to be a vegetable-based sauce.

Sometimes their fries come off as being freezer burnt and taste really dry, so they're not personally one of my favourite fries. Occasionally you'll get a nice crispy one that kicks ass.

One thing Le Grand Constant doesn’t cheap out on is the cheese. And it’s a great nice and squeaky kind, in large chunks! Sometimes they manage to make half the poutine itself with just cheese.

Today was a special day, so we ordered ours with extra bacon! They have the best smokey bacon, that melds so well with their sauce. Definitely check it out if you can!

[myworldinpoutine]

“Are you asking me the chemical compound of plastic?”

Today we ended up at A&W, after being deterred from McDonalds due to the overwhelming amount of people who showed up to celebrate McDonalds’ anniversary with 67 cent hamburgers.

Felt poutine-y, so we both ordered our burgers, drinks and poutines.

A&W’s poutine isn’t that bad compared to other American based fast food places, but it isn’t that great either.

When I asked my boyfriend how he would describe the “cheese” used, he told me he didn’t know the chemical compound to plastic.

The cheese seems to be some sort of super skim milk cheese… You know the kind, the uber “light” and low in fat type. It melted into a puddle, and their sauce was burning hot to add to it. The cheese was kinda stringy, though…

A&W has these “homefry” styled fries that are basically fast food fries with skins. The sauce wasn’t that bad, actually. Pretty acidic tomato based… Sometimes I felt like I tasted tumeric in the sauce.

Overall, it’s better than most other fast food places, but not one you actively go out of your way for.

[myworldinpoutine]

Today we drove out to St. Maurice to Casse Croute la Grondinoise. It was the first time we’ve been, but a tempting suggestion from Facebook brought us there. The snack bar touted homemade fries, which can be a gamble sometimes.

I ordered a straight up medium poutine (fries, cheese curds, and sauce), with their barbecue sauce. It came out really fast, and was molten hot!

The portion size was a little below average, taking up only half of the tin. The fries were actually pretty tasty and crispy. The poutine was literally drowning in sauce, which I love, but there wasn’t that much cheese curds. They were also a little on the smaller size, so most melted away into strings.

The sauce tasted like a typical instant powdered barbecue sauce, and was a little on the saltier side than most other sauces. Every once in a while I thought I tasted some chicken in the sauce, but overall it was just okay.

Chased it all down with a can of Pepsi! A must, in Quebec.

At around $8 for a medium poutine, I guess it was a pretty decent price for the quantity.

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The Wonderful World of Poutine!

My first introduction to poutine was from my mother when I was about 11. One night for supper she baked some fries, chopped up some mozzarella cheese and made some instant beef gravy. After piling some fries on a plate, a small handful of cheese, then topping it with the gravy, my mom stated it was “poutine”. Nothing more.

I thought it was all right. I did love french fries and gravy. And the mozzarella melted into rivulets between it all. But we never had it again. I didn’t realise there was more to it than that.

Flash forward to Junior High, I started to see poutine a little more often. A&W, KFC, and New York Fries. They were also okay, but I leaned a bit more to the KFC poutine, as I thought chicken gravy tasted better in it.

After snagging a boyfriend off the internet, I decided to go visit him. He lived in Quebec, and he promised he’d show me what REAL poutine was. And BOY was I in for a treat!

My first real Quebecois poutine was from a smallish pizza chain called Pizzeria 67. Deep fried french fries, an interesting tomato based chicken sauce and cheese curds. I found the sauce a little tart thanks to the tomato, but liked it. And the cheese curds were interesting because they were much larger than the mozzarella cubes I had in other poutines… And they squeaked when you chewed on them!

I was in love.

And now, I’ve moved to the fabled land of cheese curds and sauce and wish to share my adventures with you!