Toucan

I exhausted all the chipwagons in the vicinity of Queen's campus, so inevitably, my "encouraging" colleagues have been asking me to try poutine in the downtown area. Although Kingston is a small city, there are many restaurants and pub/bars for its size -- I guess, I will be busy eating poutine for a while. I tried Toucan (website here), a popular Irish pub in town. I had had their food before and it was pretty descent. So my hopes for poutine was relatively high.

Small: $2.75
Large: $4.75 (I had a large)

Location: 76 Princess Street

Overall: For a sit down restaurant, a $4.75 poutine is a pretty good deal. They give you a good portion and it goes very well with beer. Yet, nothing stands out as too special besides the fries.

Fries: I liked the size of the fries. While I don't know if they were from frozen or not, they were real potatos (not the frozen fries made of fake potato flakes). The fries were slightly on the thick size and so fluffy inside. However, they were not crunchy. I would have liked it better if they were fried a bit more or at a higher temperature. They were seasoned slightly.

Gravy: Traditional dark beef gravy and thick. Very similar to other places. Good flavor and reasonably salty. Yet, nothing stands out.

Cheese: They use shredded Jack cheese. It is an interesting twist as Jack cheese has more flavor compared to squeaky cheese curds whose flavor is very mild. It's good because it adds another layer of flavor. HOWEVER, it wasn't a lot. I would have liked it more of it.

**** digg it! ****


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