DISCOVERY. To kick off the Poutine Festival festivities, L’Express has tasted some poutines for you that are a little off the usual fried recipe, curds and brown gravy.
Poutine Big Mac
This comes from La braoule food truck, whose restaurant is located in Roxton Pond. It contains the ingredients you would expect to find in the hamburger of the same name: ground beef, big mac sauce, lettuce, onion and pickle.
The poutine is a little salty because of the ground beef and pickles, but overall it tastes almost like a real Big Mac. An interesting proposition in itself.
Homemade duck confit poutine
This poutine is exclusive to the street food truck Le canard échevelé, from Sorel. In addition to the usual ingredients, it is accompanied by duck confit, finely grated carrots and coleslaw.
This dish is very good, especially thanks to the marriage of the new ingredients with the usual ones in the typical Quebecois dish. A great choice for those who want to add an extra touch to traditional poutine.
Putin Bulgogi
This poutine is exclusive to Chung Chun food truck. The owner of Chung Chun in Drummondville, David Lamoureux, confides that it was created specifically for the Poutine Festival. It’s a mix between a traditional poutine and ingredients from Korean culture, such as bulgogi beef and a cheesy and garlic sauce.
“We will see what the enthusiasm will be to see if people like it and if we will add it to the menu in our restaurant,” explains Mr. Lamoureux.
This is by far the most unique poutine of its kind in the lineup. The onions provide a crisp taste, the beef is tender and the sauce is creamy and sufficiently salty and spicy.
Poutine Cowgirl
This comes from Mr Méchoui street food truck, whose restaurant is located in Trois-Rivières. Ingredients include onion, barbecue pork, maple BBQ sauce, maple syrup and Valentina sauce – a Mexican hot sauce.
This is unfortunately the biggest disappointment on this list. The poutine is not as sweet as you would expect and tastes more like pepper sauce. Still, the pork is good and there were surprisingly pieces of Doritos included on top of the dish.
Putin’s General Tao
It is true that several poutine manufacturers offer this flavor of poutine, but L’Express decided to focus on the one offered by the Le Pignon canteen in Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Conseil.
Like duck confit poutine, this is a reasonable choice that offers an extra addition to the ingredients normally found in a poutine. The small popcorn chicken balls give, together with General Tao sweet sauce, an extra crispy and sweet taste to the normally soft and salty dish.
About ten food trucks are present on site during the Poutine Festival. The Disheveled Duck and Poutine Factory stood out more among the first choices of certain festival-goers on site Thursday.