Thursday, October 28, 2010

The New York Poutine Pilgrimage

Ultimately, you may be thinking to yourself: "why the hell is he obsessing over poutine all of a sudden?" It's just the fact that I've been thinking about it a lot recently. I miss Quebec, I have a strong draw to Canada for some reason. Anyway poutine is just one of those things that draws me, and even though it's sickly unhealthy, it just tastes so good. I decided since it was more of an effort than I thought to make home-made poutine than I thought, I'd check out the poutine scene in NYC.

It seems that it was much easier than I thought. I just typed in to Google: "Best Poutine in NY." Low and behold, I site something like CitySearch came up with the best places for poutine in the city and a lot of good looking and easy to get to locations came up. I decided I would show four of my findings; two in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn.

Let's start with Brooklyn:

Mile End
I mentioned this place in my last post about making the poutine. It's a Jewish Deli with a Montreal twist on it. Instead of pastrami or corned beef, you have Canadian smoked meat and other deli fare. Though most importantly, they serve poutine! It looks really good and "Quebec authentic" too.

Sheep Station
I've seen pictures of their poutine, and it does look good, however, at little less authentic. I feel that this place is on the bottom of the four. I think it's also a little more out of the way than Mile End too. There of course is always a desire to try it.

Now Manhattan,

T-Poutine
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this store in SoHo. Straight out of Quebec, a model who brought with him his favorite French-Canadian food, poutine. He then opened up this restaurant which looks amazing. Great looking, as well as authentic looking poutine, I'm very eager to try it. However, it's temporarily closed, though when it re-opens, I'm going to be the first on line.

Pommes Frites
I'm going to thank Nimz at her blog "Bothers" for recommending this place to me. I've heard of it before, however, I never really looked into it. It turns out that in addition to their fries and variety of sauces, they have authentic poutine as well. It's served in a Styrofoam cup like street poutine you would see in Quebec City. That'll be the first one I try since it's smack dab in the middle of the village and open.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

I'm Not Waiting to go to Canada!

First of all, happy 50th post everyone, it took much longer to get here than I thought. I know now that I have something really good to write about. Let's get started.

I've never really stressed on this blog my love of poutine, which for those of you who don't know is a French Canadian specialty mixing together fries, cheese curd, and brown gravy. It's really something you have to go to Quebec to get. There is one exception however: there is a deli in Brooklyn that has a "Montreal twist" on a Jewish Deli, serving up Canadian smoked meats and deli items and of course, poutine. The place is called "Mile End" and it's not what I'm writing about.

Today I was thinking to myself, I haven't been to Quebec in a long time (since last February), and having poutine once every few months is okay. I just felt the urge to get poutine and going to Brooklyn was too much of an effort and something to do when leaving the city. So, I went out to the farm to pick up some potatoes (I already had the cheese and the stuff to make the gravy), went home and started up the fryer.

I've done homemade fries before, though when making something like poutine, you have more elements than just the fries, it's a balancing act with the other ingredients, the mozzarella being the easiest. I had worked for a good half an hour and my end result was great.

I sat down with my fresh poutine and a coke that I picked up at the store on the way home and was quite satisfied, knowing that I won't have to be craving that again for a few months. My portions were huge... it was really good though, and healthy.

This is my result!

Monday, October 18, 2010

How to Get To Promise...

There's a great little deli that offers up good food and peculiar sandwiches. That place is Promise Deli, and it's a pain to get to on foot. Walking there with my friend, Ryan, we usually have no issues walking on the side of the road that has no side walk and is very close to the cars (overly dramatic), however it's worth it.

Promise offers up traditional deli fare to your liking and as well, they have a variety of hot (and a few cold) sandwiches that will likely not be found anywhere else. The famed "Sandwiche" which is a combo of buffalo grilled chicken, mozzarella, bleu cheese on a garlic hero. A weird combination, though it works and I like to add bacon to it. Other specials include the "Boulevard," "Fire Island Chicken," "The Brooklyn Bridge" and many more.

The reason I'm writing this deli up other than the fact that I admire the business is that I had a really hard time getting there today. Normally, we do walk on the side of the road with not much room for movement on our side, only in front and behind, though that's never a problem. However, there were landscaping trucks parked all along our route to get there, and I wanted lunch. I'm making sure I eat after what happened this past Saturday.

Anyway, if the road is on our right side, to the left of us are overgrown weeds and bushes. Doesn't seem so bad, except we couldn't really get around the trucks on our right side without being in the middle of the road. I tried to make my way in on the left, and Ryan smartly waited for me to come back because I was stuck all over with barbs from rose bushes, which I wasn't going to do. We ended up looking and running, and we made it easily in one piece.

On the way out we decided to use the side walk even though the truck had left at that point. It was a good lesson learned, because I'll do a lot for food, though I'm not going to get killed over one lunch.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

A Nice Rosa Mexicano Meal After Not Eating All Day

In my entire life, I have never once become dizzy from not eating all day. It's just never happened and it occurred to me that this passed Saturday, I just didn't have any time. Spontaneous recitals and rehearsals set me back when it came to food. Luckily enough for me, instead of going home after a long day, my dad was at the opera (for the second time and I haven't even gone once this season!!!) and I could go out to dinner with my parents. The only question was, where am I going to be able to go without fainting.

It had to be that good that I would walk all the way from the upper west 80's to Lincoln Center to get food. That place was Rosa Mexicano. I haven't been for a while and I just got the craving for a really good Mexican meal and I knew exactly what I wanted. The only trouble was getting there without a reservation on a Saturday night right before the night showing of the opera was getting in.

My parents were very skeptical about the idea, though I just had a feeling that we could get to the restaurant and get a table. It was a crazy feeling, though a feeling never the less. There was no way they were going to give me the satisfaction of taking a cab or the subway there. They were going to make me work for it and I knew it, so I walked in my fatigued state in hopes of finding a table at the most popular restaurant in Lincoln Center under the conditions we had.

Finally getting down there, we walked into the restaurant and they told us that we'd have to wait about 30 minutes, and I would wait it out if I had some thing to drink and then they told us that they had a table ready. I felt like a psychic and I was really pleased with perseverance to get to this place. It turned out that they actually had a few open tables that night.

Like I said before, I knew exactly what I wanted. We first ordered the guacamole to share amongst us and then I got the carne asada which is one of my all time favorite dishes (only from there though, and maybe La Condesa) and a coke (to wake me up and satisfy my caffeine addiction). It was exactly as I envisioned it and perfect. A nice table and I nice meal, I'm glad I work for food. After we ate my dizziness had subsided and I was finally full for once in the day!


Monday, October 4, 2010

Vegetarian Lunch?!?

On Saturday I was in a major rush to get something to eat in an hour, and something new to me. I stupidly went down to the Lincoln Center Library from 85th Street to look for out of print music that wasn't even available to look at... Anyway, I took a cab all the way to 83rd, because time made it look like I had to go to Hale and Hearty (which isn't bad, I just eat there too much). However, the cab was going down 83rd and I saw this "Cafe Lalo" which I had always seen and had never gone into. This is what it looks like from the outside:


So, I stop the cab, get out and go into this restaurant hoping that I can get a seat, eat quickly, and get back to the conservatory. I walk in and I was bombarded with a massive conglomerate of great smells and I knew that I was in the right place. I walked by the main counter to see all of the incredible desserts that they had to offer there and I was sat at my table.

I almost had a heart attack when my waitress said that there was no meat being served at this cafe. However, I didn't have time to waste. I ordered a mushroom-gruyere quiche and an order of hand cut fries (which is another weakness of mine).

My order came out very quickly with this beautiful slice of quiche sitting on the plate that was definitively the best combination of puff pastry, German cheese, and mushrooms on the planet. Moving on to the fries. Some of the best, most flavorful fries I have ever had, and it was served "David-Size" in a small red bucket which was hard for me to finish with that heavy quiche.

It turned out to me that what was the scariest thought of not having meat turned out to be one of the best lunches I've ever had, next to Jean Georges Nougatine.