SMOKE'S POUTINERIE
218 Adelaide St. W., Toronto
416-599-CURD
http://www.smokespoutinerie.com
$22 for dinner for two, including tax; no alcohol
The first thing that hits you at Smoke's is the smell. A wall of grease rises on the warmth of the place, gets into everything. Hours after dinner, the scent returns every time I turn my head - stuck in my hair perhaps? Warm grease. The ineffable afterburn of the deep fryer and best friend to party people everywhere.
Why do clubgoers dig it? Because of the popular myth that greasy food settles a stomach with too much vodka or gin or beer in it. This explains why Smoke's Poutinerie, which opened in November, is open until 4 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. When the party people roll out of the clubs, they have poutine on the brain, as illustrated by some of the graffiti on Smoke's Poutinerie's customer-friendly blackboard. One of the captions reads: "Lauren, Alyssa and Tara had poutine orgasms." Another, which accompanies a drawing of a bike, reads: "Poutine powered."
Is it stupid of me to wonder why such a prosaic (to me) dish has achieved such iconic status? Poutine is French fries slathered with gravy (usually made from powdered gravy base) and topped with fresh cheese curds. From my perspective, it lacks the meaty heft of a hamburger and the crispy seduction of plain old frites. Why poutine?
Poutine originated in rural Quebec in the late 1950s. The apocryphal tale of its birth has a guy named Fernand Lachance ordering fries while waiting for some cheese curds at a cheese factory and commenting, "Ça va faire une maudite poutine" ("It's going to make a damn mess"). Hence the name. As for gravy, legend suggests it was added later to keep the fries warm longer - because poutine has always been fast food, sold at chip trucks and fast-food joints, intended to be eaten elsewhere and not necessarily at a table. And certainly not with a white tablecloth.
Poutine's place in the great Canadian sense of self was immortalized in 2000 by Rick Mercer in his hilarious CBC series Talking to Americans. Mercer told the then-governor of Texas, George W. Bush, that Canada's prime minister was named Jean Poutine. A few years later, when Bush made his first official visit to Canada, he joked during a speech, "There's a prominent citizen who endorsed me in the 2000 election, and I wanted a chance to finally thank him for that endorsement. I was hoping to meet Jean Poutine."
It is with some skepticism that I greet haute cuisine's take on poutine. When Jamie Kennedy adds (impeccably wrought) gravy and cheese curds to his fabulous fries, it just makes the otherwise sweetly crisp frites soggy and gucked up. I don't mind so much when Mark McEwan adds lobster and béarnaise sauce to frites at Bymark because 1) the béarnaise is a great dipping sauce for frites and 2) the lobster is a side that does not, like cheese curds, melt on the fries and guck them up. So it's not really poutine.
Real poutine is very gucked-up fries, which maybe you do have to be drunk to appreciate. I feel sad about fresh crispy Yukon gold frites being slathered in gravy (so that they can go soggy) and topped with cheese curds (a tasteless prequel to cheese) that will partly melt and thus make the fries even more soggy.
Presuming you think this is a good thing to do to fries, Smoke's Poutinerie is very, very good. They make fresh fries. They use fresh cheese curds. Curds are what happens to milk after it's on its way to being cheese, but before it gets there. They are firm and rubbery, with very little flavour. If you want that on your fries, go to Smoke's.
It's a hole in the wall with a service counter at the back, where you order your poutine and then pick it up a few minutes later, along with Pop Shoppe pop. The poutine comes in a brown paper carton, with a plastic fork. The most expensive kind on the menu will set you back $9.95. Go wild.
Traditional poutine at Smoke's is a straightforward combo of crisp fries with gravy that tastes as if it was built on powder and very fresh cheese curds. Bacon poutine is more fun, topped with scads of thick, sliced smoky/sweet bacon. Pulled pork is poutine topped with a generous amount of too-sweet pulled pork. Montreal poutine is topped with a big pile of not very good smoked meat, a pickle (not Strub's) and a puddle of ballpark mustard.
Some days, Smoke's goes through 1,000 pounds of potatoes, because the place has hit big. So big that owner Ryan Smolkin is getting ready to open a second outlet at Spadina and Bloor in the spring and is pushing franchises in Ottawa, Wasaga Beach, Kitchener and Kingston. My crystal ball tells me that the Poutinerie is a gold mine, because the people want fat and grease, they want it cheap and they want it fast. Especially now.
For a sophisticated alternative to poutine, head to Zoë's Bakery Café (548 King St. W., 416-504-4174, http://www.zoesbakerycafe.com), which makes a kick-ass roast beef sandwich as fast and cheap as poutine. You get the meat hit, but there is balance and elegance to Zoë's sandwich: Rare roast beef is given zing with wasabi aioli, mixed baby greens and marinated red onions. Not as iconic as poutine, but deeply delicious.
