Montreal, brace yourselves for seven days of glory. Prepare yourselves for one of the greatest weeks in our history. Montrealers, raise your forks together for what is going to be greatest culinary experience of your life. Let us celebrate our national treasure with nothing less than pride and dignity. Montreal, get ready for Poutine Week.
You read right, Poutine Week; one week filled with events, culinary treats and great parties for the decadent, saucy, cheesy delight that we Quebecers have the honour of representing. Montreal is filled with poutine gems and this week they’re all getting together to celebrate the dish that has made them famous. The event is organized by Montrealer Na’eem Adam.
“Basically, 30 restaurants are getting together and making an amazing poutine that will be available at all of these restaurants for [roughly] $10,” said Adam in an interview with The Concordian. Restaurants will also be selling half portions of this poutine for only $5.
Adam is the social innovator that was behind Burger Week in September, which was a huge success. This time he knew Montrealers expected more.
“After Burger Week, we wanted to take it to another level, and that’s poutine,” said Adam.
Poutine Week has been all over social media sites for the past few weeks. It seems everyone is preparing for the first ever Poutine Week in Montreal.
Adam and his team have been organizing it for quite a while, and events posted on Facebook are already gaining popularity. Events featured during the week include Poutine Week team dinner, hockey poutine and even a poutine jog.
“We don’t want anyone feeling too unhealthy during the week, so we even organized the poutine jog, so that you can still get that exercise in between poutines,” said Adam.
Needless to say, this is an ingenious idea that has found it’s one and only true home: Montreal. The idea and the organization behind it was absolutely spot on, and, like Adam hoped, brought this event to a whole other level. We can only hope to see this will become an annual event.
Poutineville does it like no other
Poutineville is notorious for having one of the greatest and most innovative poutines in the business. Owner Kosta Kariotakis couldn’t contain his passion when describing what he’s done with the famous poutine.
Poutineville provides a quite modern yet equally old school setting, which seems to be the norm for many restaurants in the Plateau nowadays. Nevertheless, it provides a comfortable atmosphere where one can enjoy a few drinks and a world class poutine, which is exactly what Kariotakis wanted to achieve with Poutineville.
“We want customers to have the best possible experience when coming to Poutineville,” said Kariotakis.
Over the years, Poutineville has developed different types of poutines around the core of what most of us know to be poutine. This has enabled him to discover a mix of ingredients that will literally make your mouth drool. Here’s the secret behind their success.
“What you know as poutine is smoked meat, bacon, cheese. What we’ve done here is that we’ve given the French Canadians poutine, with Greek food. We take poutine, and we add filet mignon, we add beef. No one else has poutines like us,” said Kariotakis.
There’s no doubt in my mind, especially considering my Greek origin and my personal love for Greek food, that this is an idea that has changed poutine for the better. However, the boys over at Poutineville took it to another level for Poutine Week, and the hype for this particular poutine had already exploded on the Twittersphere. They call it the General Tao Poutine. This monstrous platter of fries, sauce, and General Tao can be called nothing more than a masterpiece.
Some of the ingredients in this particular one includes sesame seeds, scallions, General Tao sauce, cheese curds and home crushed potatoes. It had been making headlines before it was even featured in their Beaubien location, receiving a spot in the “top 10 must go places for Poutine Week” on mtlblog.com.
Some other classic Poutineville poutines are on special this week in honour of Poutine Week, such as the cheeseburger poutine and the infamous braised-beef poutine. Just repeating that in my mind stirs my stomach.
Poutineville is located on 1348 Beaubien E. St., 1365 Ontario E. St., and 99 Charles Lemoyne
There is nothing ordinary about Burger Bar’s poutine
As if it was necessary to have an excuse to eat more poutine, our glorious city is home to the first ever Poutine Week, going on right now all over town. Thirty restaurants are offering up their french fry creations for the occasion, with innovative recipes inspired by international cuisine, post-inebriation needs and twists on the classic.
I decided to venture to Burger Bar, somewhere not far for Concordia students. Their featured concoction, the Hangover Poutine, consisted of king oyster mushrooms slopped in with the traditional fries and cheese curds, slathered with gravy and truffle oil and topped with a fried egg. The whole thing was served up in an iron pot. It was big enough for my two friends and I to share for dinner and be full enough not to entertain dessert.
The truffle oil and mushrooms added an earthiness to the greasy dish. The flavours were unexpected but married perfectly with the poutine, adding that hint of je ne sais quoi to the classic Quebec meal. The mushrooms provided a meatiness that is so necessary to late night food, but without the aftershock of heartburn that frequently accompanies smoked meat or hotdog poutine binges.
The egg on top is what made the poutine live up to its name. For some inexplicable reason there is nothing more satisfying than the combination of potatoes and egg after a night out.
The key to the Hangover Poutine experience is the blending of all the flavours. For optimal enjoyment cut the egg into bite-sized bits and thoroughly mix the fries with the mushrooms and cheese until it’s all a melted slurry.
My one criticism is that the heaviness of the fried egg made it sink to the bottom of the dish, so that at the end all that was left were chunks of egg white gone soggy in the gravy.
I would wholeheartedly recommend a trip to Burger Bar, especially if you’re looking to soak up all that leftover alcohol you’ve just consumed at one of Crescent street’s numerous bars.
The Hangover Poutine will cost you 15$ and some instant artery clogging, but it’s delicious and it really hits the spot.
Burger Bar is located at 1465 Crescent St.
