Merchant Tap House

A friend of mine and I were walking around downtown, and decided to have some beer. Merchant tap house (or simply known as Merchant) is a large pub restaurant with 25 beer on tap. They often have live music going on, and it gets really crowded on the weekends. The first thing I checked on their menu was poutine, of course.

Location: 6 Princess St.

Price: $7 (ish)

Overall: This poutine was presented very well. With scallions, pale yellow and orange melty cheese, and some bacon pieces, it just looked so irresistibly appetizing. Overall it was well balanced and satisfying. This may not be a classic poutine but it was nicely done. Although this is a pricier poutine, you should probably check this one out.

Fries: Typical size (thickness wise) and fried well, leaving flavorful crunch yet nice and fluffy inside. Seasoned lightly or possibly not seasoned.

Gravy: Dark beef gravy and a good amount was poured evenly over the fries. Pleasantly salty and it really went well with my Guinness.

Cheese: Shredded cheddar or something similar. Pale yellow and orange were mixed, so it could have been shredded "marble" cheese. Of course, I would have preferred real cheese curds. However, it added a good visual effect along with the chopped scallions and bacon pieces (about 1 inch square) sprinkled all over the poutine.


**** digg it! ****


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Iron Duke

My colleague's wife defended her Ph.D. thesis last week, and we all went out to celebrate the occasion. Iron Duke is a very nice bar with mellow decor and is a lot cleaner when compared to other bars. Their food, I hear, is reasonably good... EXCEPT for their poutine. I have heard about their notorious poutine from time to time and I needed to try it to see how bad it is.

Location: 207 Wellington Street

Price: Poutine was not in the menu. I had to ask them if they had it. The waitress replied, "sure, we can do it for you"... According to the receipt, it was an a la carte.

Fries: 3.00
Gravy: 1.50
Cheddar cheese: 0.63

Adding up 5.13 (before tax)

Overall: This poutine, you can definitely skip. The fries were good but nothing else really stood out to mention. The amount was just OK but I found it it was a bit disappointing. With Bubba's poutine within a few blocks away, there is no earthly reason why you have to try this poutine. SKIP IT.

Fries: Good thick fries with skin on them. This was the only good thing about this poutine. They were fried nicely and the flavor was good enough to stimulate your appetite.

Gravy: Semi-dark, and it was a bit on the runny (thin) side, which is ok. However, the amount was on the skimpy side. It was not quite enough to coat all the fries. This had an intense consommé flavor. I didn't mind it but I think a lot of people might find it a bit too overpowering.

Cheese: As the receipt said, it was cheddar (pale, not the yellow kind). Again, there was not enough of it. When I started eating it, I thought the had forgotten to put cheese on my poutine. VERY disappointing.


**** digg it! ****


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A&W @ YVR

I was in Portland Oregon for a conference (You should visit. It’s a clean and neat city) and was telling my friend Mr. S all about poutine while I was there. After a week in the States, something I had never expected happened, I had a huge craving for poutine. After being tormented at the Canadian immigration at Vancouver airport, my craving was just about to burst, and I was going through a dangerous withdrawal (With the withdrawal and jetlag, I was acting like a junkie… no wonder the immigration gave me a hard time). Luckily, I found an A&W at the airport food court. I ordered a meal and replaced the fries with a small poutine in order to ease my pain.

Location: Vancouver International Airport, Domestic Terminal, Departure level 3

Price: I don’t know how much I paid to “upgrade” the meal. Addicts don’t care how much they have to pay. We pay whatever to get what we want.

Overall: This is the second “fast food” poutine I had (BK is the other one). I definitely prefer this poutine to BK’s poutine. It was satisfying and everything was well-balanced. This might have been because I was going through a poutine withdrawal so it could have skewed my evaluation positively. By the way, I had to have their root beer (which I always thought tastes like toothpaste).

Fries: Typical fast food fries - very long and thin. However, they were cooked nicely. Crunchy edges and its texture were very appetizing. They were seasoned lightly with good flavor. But again, I prefer thick-cut fries to thin long ones.

Gravy: Light chicken type of gravy. It was very thick. The taste was satisfying with the strong consommé type flavor (if I remember correctly). Reasonably salty which was also satisfying. The combination of the gravy with the fries was just so good. The amount of gravy was a bit on the skimpy side.

Cheese: Semi-squeeky curds. The amount was good but I am sure it was pre-packaged for each serving. The biggest piece was about 1 cm3, so they weren’t terribly big. Nothing stood out to mention.


**** digg it! ****


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