Montreal newcomer Le Gros Jambon has been getting all kinds of great reviews lately. Most people agree that it is one of the rare decent casual dining spots in the tourist nadir of the old city.

The interior tries to mimic a 1950s diner. This would almost work well if it wasn’t for the tacky Route 66 wallpaper.

I went there for lunch – the place was packed with suits, which contrasted with the scruffy-chic staff. One of the male waiters in a lumberjack shirt was very touchy-feely, indiscriminately stroking all customers on the back before taking their order or bringing them drinks. It took a while, but my poutine finally arrived and looked great.

Fries: The home cut fries are made with an inappropriate waxy potato. Instead of a crispy flavourful exterior skin, there is nothing to bite into but a limp and somewhat bland fry. 20/30

Gravy: There’s a lot going on with this gravy, but I’m not sure what to make of it. First there’s the sweetness of cinnamon and cloves, then the roundness of a smooth red wine, followed by a salty ending of mustard and beef broth. Every once in a while, the scallions add a roaring cymbal to the melody. This gravy is a bit like one of those one-man band street musicians that plays the trumpet, drums, and guitar simultaneously – there’s a wow factor at the dexterity, but you wouldn’t want to listen to this music at home. It’s kinda like Bjorn Ulvaeus crossed with a football hooligan, or a hairy masculine drag queen drinking gluhwein. It does succeed in making you forget how ordinary the fries and the cheese are, though. I appreciate the entertaining complexity, but it’s a little too burlesque for me. 35/50

Cheese: There’s plenty of cheese on this poutine but the chunks are tiny and, most unfortunately, clumped up and straight-out of the-fridge cold. Not a squeak to be heard for miles. This is an unforgivable sin for any restaurant, but even more so for a place with foodie pretentions selling a poutine at top dollar prices. 8/20

TOTAL SCORE:
63/100

Verdict: Overrated. Limp fries, cold cheese, burlesque gluhwein gravy. There are better food options nearby, namely the $4 BBQ pork noodle soup (with a cup of Hong Kong milk tea) at Chinatown’s Dobe & Andy.

Price:Expensive. $10.20 with tax and tip. There’s a $10 threshold with poutine that shouldn’t be passed.

Opening hours:MON: Closed, TUE-THU: 7:30AM-3:30PM, FRI: 7:30AM-MIDNIGHT, SAT: 10:00AM-MIDNIGHT, SUN: 10:00AM-4:00PM.

Location: 286 Notre Dame West, Montreal, QC H2Y 2N7, near Square Victoria and Place d’Armes Metro.

View Larger Map

To be fair, pupusas are probably healthier than poutine as a national staple, but they are still a trashy fatty high-carb food. Think fried cornmeal cakes stuffed with beans, deep-fried pig skin, and cheese. They are a close cousin to the Venezuelan Arepa or the Mexican Gordita.

However, what makes pupusas different (and better) is the curtido: a mild lemony-sweet sauerkraut made of carrots, cabbage and onions. Curtido is smothered on top of the pupusa, which is then covered in salsa. The result is a heavenly blend of crunchy, sweet, salty, spicy and melty cheese goodness.

Thankfully, pupusas have been available in Quebec since the mass migration of Salvadorans in the 1980s. Montreal has more pupuserias opening up every year, particularly in Little Italy, Villeray, and Saint Michel. I’ve tried several, and the standouts are El Chalateco (which is often closed) and La Carreta (pictured). Both are located near Beaubien metro. Quebec City has a few places that serve pupusas but, as with most ethnic food in the provincial capital, standards are lower and prices are higher than in Montreal. I have tried them all and would not recommend any of them.

La Carreta

Pupusas are wonderfully cheap. They usually cost around $2-$3 each, and that includes unlimited salsa and curtido. Although they look small, two are generally enough for a meal (three if you’re famished).

This is a bargain compared to other latino corn-based concoctions. Montreal’s decent taquerias charge the same price for a taco, but you’ll be done in about two bites (though the taste of a decent taco al pastor is admittedly more refined). Areperas in town charge at least twice as much for a similar product, which makes me wonder how they can stay in business.

La Carreta. 350, rue Saint-Zotique E., corner Drolet.

El Chalateco. 520 Rue Beaubien E., in front of Beaubien metro.

The decor hasn’t changed since 1989. There are harsh fluorescent lights, marbled turquoise laminate tables, and pastel pink walls. This is probably the least appealing casse croute in town.

Surprisingly, there’s also some art. I’ll let you judge whether it adds to the decor.

We were assaulted with the constant noise of death metal throughout our meal, the music of choice in “La Capitale du Métal.” The restaurant was tuned in to Quebec City’s favourite station, the right-wing populist Radio X. The onsite reading material was also edifying.

The chef was air-drumming away next to his frier, most likely high on coke. The cashier did not share his enthusiasm, her supply of uppers having probably run out. We asked her questions about the sauce. Her eyes drooped, and she pointed to the chef: “Ask him,” she grunted. The chef instantly leaped away from his frier, bounced off the walls, and launched into an incoherent spiel about his different sauces: “I also have something called the 9-1-1 sauce, but it’s not on the menu,” he explained, chuckling furiously, “The first time I served it turned out to be a health disaster, but I’ve since adjusted the spice levels.”

When our meals arrived, we realized that he had gotten two of our orders wrong. When one of us pointed this out to the cranky cashier, she scowled defensively: “C’est pas moi qui les a montées!” (“I did not perform this montage!”). The chef executed a new montage of said poutines, which turned out to be a suitable assemblage of the requested constituent parts.

The Poutinerie prides itself on serving 100 different kinds of poutine. It has a wide array of sauces, but most seemed to be variations on tomato-based BBQ sauce. My choice was simple: a classic poutine – After all, you need to get the basics right.

Fries: The fries were pleasantly crispy, though a little more crisp wouldn’t hurt. They lack a bit of seasoning and taste. 23/30.

Gravy: The temperature and texture of the brown sauce are OK, but it is tasteless. The other alternatives have more taste, but are a little too tomato-heavy. 25/50.

Cheese: The cheese is a little too cold and also doesn’t taste like much. It squeaks, but just barely. The chunks are tiny – “it looks like they’ve gone through the pack and cut the chunks with a nail clipper,” commented one of my friends. Quantities are generous, with a bed of cheese at the bottom of the poutine. 14/20.

TOTAL SCORE:
62/100

Verdict: Tasteless poutine in a grim atmosphere.

Price:$11.00 for a poutine and a cheeseburger strikes me as a bit pricey, especially considering the atmosphere

Opening Hours: MON-SUN 11:00AM-9:00PM

Location: 292, rue Marie-De-L’incarnation, Québec, Québec.

View Larger Map

The menu was also revamped, with old Quebec favourites (tourtiere, Montreal bagels) sitting alongside classic British pub grub (fish & chips, potted beef) and newer American crazes (slider trios). Prices remain reasonable considering the upscale Outremont location and celebrity rebranding.

Meals come with complimentary gherkins. I’m not much into pickled cucumbers, but my fellow diners assured me they were quite tasty.

We got suckered into the slider trio, which also turned out to be tasty, with juicy caramelized onions and plenty of melted cheese.

Then our poutine arrived, served in Royal Doulton china no less!

Unfortunately, the contents were not as impressive as the container.

Fries: These fries have no crisp, many of them are a bit limp and undercooked. They are also covered in cajun spices, which don’t go well with the other poutine ingredients. 20/30.

Gravy: It’s a shame this gravy is not like the one at the Gordon Ramsay restaurant in London. In fact, it doesn’t even come close. It is an unappealing greyish brown with an overpowering rosemary taste. This floral taste clashes with the cajun spices on the fries. I suppose the gravy deserves points for being unique, but that doesn’t make it good. To be fair, the rosemary gravy probably tastes better with chicken than with fries & cheese.32/50.

Cheese: The cheese is nice and relatively squeaky with mid-size room-temperature chunks. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough of it, especially considering the obscene amount of fries in the small poutine. Two of us ordered this dish – we both had lots of leftover fries and were left wanting more cheese. 13/20.

TOTAL SCORE:
65/100

Verdict: If you must have Gordon Ramsay poutine, get a flight to London and try the one at Foxtrot Oscar instead.

Price:Reasonable – $7.00 for a small, but the small is more than enough for one person. Not a bad price considering the poutine is served in Royal Doulton china.

Opening Hours: MON-SUN 11:00AM-2:30PM & 5:00PM to 11:00PM

Location: 381, Laurier Ouest (A 16 minute walk west from Laurier Metro).

View Larger Map

“I’m not a racist, but there’s a reason poutine is worse in Montreal than elsewhere in the province,” said my racist friend. “There are too many Greek immigrants running restaurants.”

The Greeks are not only being blamed for ruining the Euro; it seems they also ruined poutine. While I think this is an unfortunate oversimplification, let’s humour my friend for a minute. It is true that many of the Greek-run restaurants I have tried in Montreal use grated cheese rather than superior curd cheese. This may be cultural – I have never been to Greece, but my travels in the surrounding countries have shown that “fries with grated cheese” appears on many bar menus. A little bit of googling confirms that the Greeks are also fond of something similar, though I’ll have to admit that the feta used in this recipe sounds like a better curd-cheese substitute than the bland pizza cheese used in Montreal.

While it is tempting to blame the Greeks for reducing poutine standards in Montreal, we should remember that for every Greek cook using grated cheese there are hundreds of non-Greek Montrealers willing to buy and eat grated-cheese poutine. Most don’t seem to mind. Some people even like it. In short, everyone in Montreal is to blame for putting up with this travesty.

Which brings me to Salonika, a fine example that illustrates this phenomenon, as there was nary a Greek customer in sight and plenty of people eating poutine. This 24hr Plateau eatery whips up everything from souvlaki to Chinese food. The traditional 60s-70s casse-croute booths are still there, though they clearly reupholstered the benches sometime in the early 1990s. Luckily, their taste in fabric was relatively conservative, a rare show of restraint in a period that was perhaps the nadir of upholstery.

Fries: They taste like undercooked frozen fries. Crispy-yet-undercooked exterior with a floury-yet-undercooked interior. Not too greasy but quite bland. 16/30.

Gravy: Generic but decent despite the slightly mucosy texture. Good temperature, decent taste, and proper quantity. Slightly sweet BBQ tinge. 36/50.

Cheese: A generous quantity of grated cheese, but the menu does not specify that the so-called poutine is served with inferior cheese. There is no excuse for poutine with grated cheese in a city where cheese curds are so readily available. This is not poutine. Deserves a “0″ for cheese but I’ll give a few points because they give you lots of cheese for your buck. 3/20.

TOTAL SCORE:
55/100

Verdict: Avoid the poutine but come see the late-night waitress that looks like an elderly overweight Baby Spice.

Price:Average.

Opening Hours: 24 hours

Location: 5261, Rue Saint Denis, corner Boucher, near Laurier metro.

View Larger Map

Why did I eat here? I think I was drunk. No, now I remember: some idiot raved about Cosmos’ special poutine with out-of-this-world three-pepper sauce and I believed him.

The Cosmos sits on Grande Allée, Quebec City’s equivalent to Montreal’s Crescent street. Okay, so there are no Anglo jocks or iPhone-touting nouveau-riche Lebanese, but douchebags are all the same no matter what language they speak. What’s more, the restaurant sits right next to that ultimate douchebag magnet: a Cigar Lounge.

This guy is loving the steady beat

The Cosmos welcomes you with a fairly predictable steady 4/4 jungle-lounge beat–a continuous rhythm that stays with you throughout your meal. The crowd consists of 35-45 year olds talking about the hockey game and their investment portfolios. The gimmicky multicolored lighting changes from blue, to green, to red, and back again. Nobody shows any interest in the Namibia vs. Samoa rugby game on TV (Hmmm… I wonder why).

The high-tech gadgetry reaches its climax in the bathrooms, which contain urinals shaped like alien eggs, sinks with waterfalls, Quebec city’s first XLERATOR high-speed hand-dryer, and a one-way mirrored fish-tank. For those who like to dance while urinating, the same steady jungle-lounge beat can be heard in the bathroom.

The Regular

Cosmos poutine with peppercorns

Fries: The fries had clearly been sitting around for a while. Although these home-cut fries might have had potential in their youth, they were now floury, limp, thin, tasteless, cold, and a wrinkly dark brown. 12/30

Sauce: Satisfying at first, but the coagulated lumps and generic taste soon wear on you. The Cosmos peppercorn sauce tries to amp up the taste but fails miserably, the result being far too overpowering for the other ingredients. 20/50 for the Cosmos sauce, 25/50 for the regular sauce.

Cheese: Like everything else, it tastes like it’s been sitting around a while, but this a good thing when it comes to squeaky cheese. Despite the proper temperature, the cheese has no squeak. All the cheese is on top. In other words, the portions are ridiculously stingy, especially in the Cosmos sauce poutine, where the large peppercorns are considered an adequate replacement for cheese. 9/20

TOTAL SCORE:
41/100 (Cosmos sauce)
46/100 (Regular)

Verdict: We leave with a bad taste in our mouths, but what a beat!

Price: Average to high – $6.25 to $6.50 for a small.

Opening Hours: MON-FRI: 7:00AM-MIDNIGHT, SAT-SUN: 8:00AM-1:00AM.

Location: 575 Grande Allée Est, Quebec City, Quebec.

View Larger Map

Finding poutine in Europe is difficult. You’d think you could find a decent poutine in Paris, but Parisians have never shown much interest in cuisine from Quebec. It seems there’s only one place that serves it called “The Great Canadian Pub.” I refused to set foot in this place because 1) it has a stupid name, 2) it has giant sports screens and 3) the poutine is supposedly crap.

So I took the Eurostar and headed to London, which had more options. London also has its fair share of tacky Canada-themed pubs for the hoser crowd – all of which apparently serve abominations topped with grated cheese. However, Gordon Ramsay’s Foxtrot Oscar claimed to serve the real thing with proper squeaky cheese. Since online comments were generally positive, I decided to check it out.

Foxtrot Oscar is in the snooty part of London around Sloane Square. It’s luxury central, and the restaurant seemed offputtingly pompous for a self-proclaimed gastropub. The Hungarian waiter saw “plebe” written all over our faces and instantly directed us to a table in the basement. Okay, maybe I’m just imagining this. In the end, he turned out to be alright – in fact, the service was much friendlier than what you usually find in Britain.

Don’t let this photo deceive you, this poutine is much better than it looks.

Fries: Although our burger came with thick British chips, the poutine came with North American fries. This disappointed some of the Brits at our table, but you can’t really fault this restaurant for trying to get it right. The fries were tasty: crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. One of our fellow diners felt they were a little conservative: “There’s scope for them to talk a bit more.” Conservative perhaps, but what do you FUCKING* expect in Sloane Square?(*the swearing is a tribute to Gordon Ramsay). 26/30.

Gravy: This is the best poutine gravy I’ve ever had – it was rich, slightly sweet, with a pleasing fullness. Everyone agreed that the gravy was FUCKING outstanding. One person said it was “a little too sweet,” someone else said it was “a little too salty” while I thought it was just right. 50/50.

Cheese: Like most poutine cheese outside of Canada, there was something slightly unusual about these curds. They looked right, but somehow tasted a little too sharp to be proper. They had a slight squeak, but not quite the sound of same-day freshness. Moreover, the curds were all slightly melted and clumped together in one BIG FUCKING LUMP hidden under the fries. 12/20.

TOTAL SCORE:
88/100

Verdict: Did I mention that this is the best gravy I’ve ever had? You’re unlikely to find a better poutine in London.

Price:High – £6.50 ($10.50). I suppose this isn’t too bad considering that 1) you’re in Britain and 2) this is a Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

Opening Hours: MON-SAT 12:00-15:00, 18:00-22:30; SUN 12:00-15:45, 18:00-21:00.

Location: 79 Royal Hospital Road, London, UK.

View Larger Map

Au bonnet d’âne (The Dunce Cap), is one of the nicer cafés in Quebec City. It is located in the artsy progressive enclave of Saint-Jean-Baptiste. The wood furnishings, wood fridge, and tin ceiling give the place a nice cozy feel. There are display cabinets with school-themed memorabilia. This is appropriate, as the Grey Nuns used to run a school across the street–my mom went to grade school there in the 1940s and likes to point out where they took out the school door and replaced it with a window. Look closely–you can still see it.

The restaurant also has a nice terrace out back.

Food is slightly above average, albeit unexceptional. The menu is a conservative mix of nachos, burgers, pasta, pizza, poutine, and meat dishes, some with an inventive twist. There are several varieties of poutine on the menu, including one with curry sauce, another with cajun cream sauce, and the oxymoronic “poutine française” with a tasty creamy peppercorn sauce.

Fries: The fries are astringent and seem to dry out the palate. They have a slight floury texture and the skin adds a hint of bitterness. Home-cut and home-cooked but rather unexceptional 17/30.

Gravy: The “Québécois” poutine has a rather average brown sauce. The taste and temperature are generally OK, though it is a bit salty and nothing to get excited about. 33/50.

Cheese: Excellent squeak and good quantity 18/20.

TOTAL SCORE:
68/100

Verdict: Average. There’s better stuff on the menu. If you must have a poutine, I’d recommend the “poutine française” instead. Worth a stop for the atmosphere.

Price: A bit high, but not obscenely expensive: $7.25 before tax.

Opening Hours: winter: SUN-WED: 8AM to 10PM; THU-SAT: 8AM to 11PM – summer: 8AM to 11PM every day.

Location: 298, rue Saint-Jean, Quebec, QC. 15 minute walk west from the old city (note to tourists: this is a nice walk & well worth getting out of the old city tourist circus into an authentic lived-in neighbourhood).

View Larger Map

You don’t need to be Scandinavian to run a good Scandinavian restaurant. In fact, some of the best Scandinavian food I ever had was at Fika, a “Swedish Halal” café run by Malay Muslims in Singapore.

Café Ellefsen is run by a Quebecer whose distant Scandinavian relatives migrated to the Saguenay. The cozy-minimalist decor is fantastic, a welcome addition to the design-starved neighbourhood of Rosemont. As a result of this, it has been colonized by young people with Macbooks.

We tried the “poutine norvégienne,” which includes cubes of sharp cheese and meatballs. They also had a “poutine chanterelles” with mushrooms and a “poutine gravlax.” Like everything else in the restaurant (aside from the ceiling), it looked great. But how did it taste?

Fries: Big, almost like steak fries or British chips. They’re a little too soft and pasty. Little to no crisp, and the bottom ones are mushy. 23/30.

Gravy: The gravy sinks to the bottom. It is probably home-made creamy Swedish meatball gravy but the taste is a bit bland. It has a fatty texture but is almost tasteless aside from a light peppery tinge. Not enough salt to liven up the dormant flavours. Good temperature. 28/50.

Cheese: This place doesn’t use cheese curds but that’s OK because they’re trying to do something different and Scandinavian. They’ve replaced the curds with some relatively tasty sharp grainy cheese cubes. Unfortunately, the cheese melts too quickly and doesn’t quite bring out anything in the bland gravy. Not the best mix of tastes and textures. 10/20.

Meatballs: Like everything else in this dish, the meatballs are bland. They taste like regular lumps of ground beef with no seasoning. No pork, bread crumbs, nutmeg, pepper or onions. This is not a Swedish meatball. Even the mass-produced meatballs sold at IKEA are better than these. In short, the meatballs add nothing to the poutine. + 0 points

TOTAL SCORE:
61/100

Verdict: Great atmosphere, excellent coffee, mediocre poutine.

Price: OUCH! 9$!

Opening Hours:
MON-WED 7AM-11PM, THU-FRI 7AM-midnight, SAT 9AM-midnight, SUN 9AM-11PM.

Location: 414 rue st-zotique est . montréal See their website.

View Larger Map

It takes a lot to drag me out to the wasteland of elevated highways around Cremazie metro station, but Patate Rouge seemed to be worth the trek. Two different people told me it may have the best poutine in Montreal, both of whom are usually as dismissive of the city’s poutine options as I am. Once you’re out of the station, it’s a dismal five minute walk east alongside the elevated highway to get there – enjoy!

Patate Rouge looks like an old Dairy Queen outlet recycled into a cheesy pastiche of a 1950s diner. The most interesting aspects of the interior decoration are the leatherette couches with red potato motif. The rest is unconvincing cheap faux-50s diner crap – Betty Boop metal signs, laminated photos of Elvis, etc. If you’re not into the fifties decor, you can also choose to eat outside to enjoy the sweet rumbling sound of barrelling trucks against cracked asphalt.

Leatherette couches with red potato motif

We tried the small and the big poutines.

Fries: Limp, home-cut fries. The flesh is sweet and the skin is bitter, creating a somewhat unpleasant mix. Perhaps the potatoes need extra washing. The inappropriate container for the small poutine means the fries at the bottom turn into a pulpous mush. 16/30.

Gravy: Way too hot. I burnt my tongue on the first bite. When it cooled down enough for me to taste it properly, I noticed a pleasantly light BBQ edge to the brown sauce, but it was ruined by an overpowering saltiness. At the end, there was a soupy boiling mess at the bottom of my poutine container. The large poutine seemed to have a more appropriate quantity of sauce. 22/50.

Cheese: This may be the best poutine in Montreal for cheese, which leaves me hopeful that there are other cheese suppliers than whoever provides the useless crap that passes for curds in most Montreal casse-croutes. These chunks are fresh and have a great squeak. They are decently sized compared to other poutines in town (but Fromagerie Victoriaville still gives this place a run for its money). There’s a generous amount of cheese that is well spread out through the dish. The chunks retain their shape and squeak despite the onslaught of the boiling hot sauce. 19/20.

TOTAL SCORE:
57/100

Verdict: I couldn’t even finish my small poutine. The sauce was too strong and the fries were a mush. This place is definitely not worth the trip.

Price:Good – $5.27 for the small, $6.19 for the large. Decent value considering the size and the quantity of cheese, but the sauce and the fries ruin it.

Opening Hours: SUN-WED, 8AM-8PM; THU 8AM-10PM; FRI-SAT, 8AM-11PM.

Location: 755 Boulevard Crémazie Est, Montreal. See their website.

View Larger Map