A Little Night Music, and some Poutine...

After working up an appetite from some Jazz Fest dancing (yes this is coming a month late...sorry for the delay!) we headed to the Montreal Pool Room across the street - near the corner of St. Laurent and St. Catherine. We'd read some good things online about this classic fast food restaurant known for their steamies (Montreal style steamed Hot Dogs) and for their Poutine.

Here's how we saw it:
a) Crispiness - 3.5 (started really crispy and delicious but got a little soggy after a while..)
b) Thickness of fries - 4
c) Gooeyness of Fromage - 4.5
d) Quality of curd - 5

e) Quality of gravy - 4

f) Value (ie cheapness) - 5+ (seriously good value for a massive plate)

Danny and Lukas from California joined us on this stop for their first ever taste of Poutine (shocking I know..) and I can confidently say they were equally disgusted and in love with it.

Total Shebang:

This was a really solid poutine. For a place that feels like Belle Province and other Montreal fast food chains, Montreal Pool Room is doing a great job at making a quality poutine. We would definitely return. Often.

8/10

Another Day Another Dollar... and Another Poutine

This Monday morning Danica showed up to work at St. James Drop-in delighted to hear that Kevin, on of the chefs at the centre, decided to treat the members to the Quebec's finest cuisine in a late celebration of St. Jean Baptiste.

The St-James Drop-In Centre on the third floor of St. James United Church in Montreal caters to people dealing with issues related to homelessness, mental illness and addiction. It offers services from counselling and crisis intervention to basic needs such as access to showers and hot nutritious meals...and you can definitely count poutine as one of them. 

 

                                                     

Visit the website for the centre here: http://www.stjamescentre.ca/

A Recommendation Gone Wrong...

We received a recommendation from a reliable source (a worker at Pitarifique) for where we should go for our next stop on the tour. This led us to Chez Claudette on Laurier at the corner of Drolet. It's a cute diner, with a nice patio off to the side, with good service and an expansive Poutine menu - we decided to keep it fair though and opt for the standard poutine.

Here's how it ranked:
a) Crispiness - 2
b) Thickness of fries - 4.5
c) Gooeyness of Fromage - 3.5
d) Quality of curd - 5
e) Quality of gravy - D and I seriously disagreed on this. Em gives it a 2 and D gives it a 4
f) Value (ie cheapness) - 4 ($7.90 for a massive plate)

Not impressed.

There's also a lack of photos for this stop, it was just too awkward to take dissapointed photos of the poutine on the small back patio that was packed with people (or shall we say ameteurs).

Some quotes from the experience:
"Ou this is just not going to get a rave review. Too much gravy, not enough curd." - Em

"I feel like they could really tighten it up and concentrate everything rather than go for the big plate, big fries etc." - D

The Total Shebang:
D - I'm not that impressed to tell you the truth. They have a fab patio though and a lovely atmosphere, but the poutine is really amateur.

Em - I wanted this to be good, but was very underwhelmed. I definitely want to come back for breakfast though. It's a good greasy spoon to visit, but as far as pout goes there was way too much gravy that over took the rest.

5/10

An Unofficial Stop on the Tour

After a late night filled with numerous drinks for a farewell night for our very good friend Stefan Rosenbaum, Danica and other good friend Jeff AKA Jay'Dore thought it was necessary to get a Pout (even though it was a night off...) They ended up at Pizza Giovani on St. Laurent.  

Jay and D couldn't resist... It definitely was not part of our official loop, readers need not worry, all they remember is a poutine soup and a nasty poutine hangover the next day. Not cute.

Check out Jay'Dore's music at www.myspace.com/jaydore!

Pout-arifique!

While this post may be coming a week late (the massive amount of poutine in our bodies is making us lazy...), that does not reflect the quality of this poutine. On Saturday the 20th of June we ventured to Pitarifique on Rachel near the corner of St. Laurent.
It's a small unassuming souvlaki/pita restaurant with a few tables and take-out, but once you try the food you can see right away how addicting it is.

Here's our rundown of the poutine:
a) Crispiness - 4.5
b) Thickness of fries - 4.5

c) Gooeyness of Fromage - 3 (though that's not a bad thing)  

d) Quality of curd - 5 (!!) 

e) Quality of gravy - 4 (it's vegetarian and homemade)

f) Value (ie cheapness) - 4 ($5.85)

The Poutine: (we didn't even get a picture before we started eating because it looked so good)

Best accompanied with:

- Souvlaki pita and a diet coke...because we're watching our weight haha...)

- Tropic Thunder the movie playing in the background (there's two TVs playing movies or the news at all times)

Special Notes:

- Amazing service, our poutine was specially made and delivered by the owner of Pitarifique, George.

- At the questioning of one of the workers there, we have decided to make business cards (that's right, we're in demand and becoming official)

Us with George the Owner behind the counter

The Total Shebang:

- It was awesome. Really good squeaky curd, tasty gravy, crispy delicious fries. It doesn't get much better than this. For a place that doesn't even specialize in poutine, they are doing something seriously right.

8.5/10

Dinner and a movie? Or rather a movie and some Pout, yep that's better.

After a botched attempt to see Karate Kid at the downtown Montreal cinemas, we ended up at the old Forum converted into a movie theatre to see Get him to the Greek. After a hilarious movie we were ready and anxious to get some pout in our stomachs. Luckily we were right next door to to Moe's diner (corner of Maisonneuve and Lambert Closse). We had heard from several reliable sources that Moe's had great poutine. We were joined this evening by our very good friend Alexa Green.

Here's how we saw it:
a) Crispiness - 4.5

b) Thickness of fries - 3 (someone commented they somewhat reminded us of McDonalds fries, not good for a poutine)  

c) Gooeyness of Fromage - 5

d) Quality of curd - 3 (no curd but good, flavourful cheese)

e) Quality of gravy - 3 (your typical fake gravy)

f) Value (ie cheapness) - 3.5 ($9.50 for 3 people but we weren't feeling sick afterwards - which is a good feeling for pout)

It was pretty big and gooey:

Quotes:
Em - "This is the kindof poutine I would want if I was drunk." Alexa in response - "Yes, so true, its simple."
D - "How about some salt and pepper on it? ..Ou actually maybe we should quote me on that because I don't think that's a good thing..."
Alexa - "They're kindof like McDonalds fries... they are kinda gushy but I like that, you know? They soak up the gravy."

Best accompanied avec:

Salt, and an incessant phone call from Emily's sister (there's your shout out Mag!)

Total shebang:

D - It was alright, but wouldn't suggest anyone to go to Moes... the quality just wasn't there. Sorry guys, D's gotta be real. 5/10

Em - I think we're just St. Laurent poutine girls at heart. I'm not going to be as harsh as D, I could see wanting this if I was out and after a long night - but really when would we ever be going out in the Concordia ghetto? 5.5/10

Even though we didn't give it a glowing review, it doesn't mean we didn't eat every single last drop.

Pizza Poutine? Yeah we weren't convinced either.

Our friend Dylan joined us for a leg on our tour this past Saturday because it was his last night in Montreal before he was flying back home to France. We almost went to to La Banquise, however the line was too long so that stop will have to wait for a while. Instead we ended up at Le Grand Bayou on Rachel near the corner of St. Laurent.

For a New Orelans themed restaurant we were pleasantly surprised to see that they had poutine on their menu. However their pout had a different take as it was with meat sauce instead of gravy.

Here's our ranking:
a) Crispiness - 3.5
b) Thickness of fries - 4.5
c) Gooeyness of Fromage - 5
d) Quality of curd - 2.5 (it wasn't curds, just a lot of crispy melted cheese on top that)
e) Quality of gravy - 0 (it was a tomato meat sauce)
f) Value (ie cheapness) - 3 ($7.50)

It does look good:

I am not convinced with this pout, D is liking the cheesy gooeyness, and Dylan`s loving it.
 

 
Given that we are writing this 5 days later and left our napkin review at the restaurant (haha I bet they were not happy with what we wrote...) we don`t have our hilarious quotes or complete review to write here.
However from what we remember we were not entirely impressed and believe it would have been much better as a normal poutine. It just didn't give us that lasting poutine flavour, we weren't satisfied.

L'Anecdote to our hunger

Our second stop on our tour occurred tonight, and it was by chance as we were heading to La Banquise and luckily decided to skip that one for now (we will return) and happened upon L'Anecdote instead. L'Anecdote is a cute diner style restaurant on the corner of Rachel and St. Hubert that I thought only served breakfast, but luckily for us I was wrong. 

So here goes the scoring - a reminder that 0 is "no no no" and 5 is "fuck ya" 
a) Crispiness - 2 (if it had been crispy we think it would be one of the best in the city)
b) Thickness of fries - 3.5  (standard size) 

c) Gooeyness of Fromage - 5 (it was perfect curds)

d) Quality of curd - 5 
e) Quality of gravy - 5 (Dark, alors substance and really salty) 

f) Value (ie cheapness) - 3 ($7.80 and a good size)  

The Pout:


Some quotes from the evening (along with Special Guest Mackenzie Donaldson)
Em - "The cheese is just perfect, that's what a curd just is"
Waitress - "Have you tried our Poutine with Emmental?" and "Are you guys being paid to do this?" (Haha we wish...)
Mackenzie - "You can just taste the potato, I don't think the lack of crispiness takes away from it"

Danica - "Yup."

Best Accompanied With: A pichet of Boreal Rousse for $14 and lots of water to ease the pout down along with a fab playlist of cute french musique

The Total Shebang: 

D - Okay I know we're only on the 2nd pout officially, but I have a lot of poutine experience and this is the best one I have had in a long time! Yup loved it, note to l'Anecdote chefs - crispier fries and you're golden.

P.S. It was enjoyable watching the slow decline of my wing woman Em. This one hit her hard... could it be the two bagels with cream cheese and salami that she pre-ate with? We need to start going on more runs.

Em - I don't think I can even write right now. Whew.

8.5/10 

Good to the last drop!

Our first victim: Cabane

While sitting in Jeanne Mance park drinking Pabst on a sunny June night we decided to start our mission. Our first stop on the International Montreal Poutine Tour was Cabane on St. Laurent between Duluth and St. Cuthbert.

We decided to make a highly regulated and systematized scale for our judgements - A scale from 0 - 5 from "No no no" to "Fuck ya" written on the napkin of each restaurant we visit.

Cabane ranks as thus:

a) Crispiness - 4

b) Thickness of fries - 5

c) Gooeyness of Fromage - 5

d) Quality of curd - 2 ( although to be fair it was grated cheese instead of curds)

e) Quality of gravy - 5 (it was tasty yet subtle and peppery)

f) Value (ie cheapness) - 3 ($5.50 and a solid size)

 

Here it is:

Danica's loving it:

Best accompanied avec:
Mayo and a light fruity beer (we shared a pitcher of Cheval Blanc)

Quotes from the experience:

"I gotta say I'm loving this poutine" - Em

I am loving it with mayo:

Special notes:

- Plate of mayo given to us right off the bat without asking

- Hunks of peppercorn a plus in the delivery

The total Shebang:
D: "I miss the curd but was otherwise thouroughly satisfied"  7/10

Em: "Seriously enjoyed it. Actually liked the grated as it made it overall cheesier, loved the gravy" 7.5/10

The finished product with our napkin review: