Tag Archives: Poutine

Beach Week pt 1

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Surf City Cuisine

I did a lot of dining out during the family week at the beach so I’m splitting the blog into two parts rather than turning it into picture laden novella.  Our tradition is breakfasts and lunches are “on your own” events and we tend to split up into loners or small groups.  Suppers are everyone at the table family events where we take turns cooking for the whole group.  This year we added the grown kids to the rotation and it was a joy watching them working together, playing music and having a great time cooking for all of us.

Sentiment out of the way let’s talk about the food scene in Surf City.  The house we rented was located such that over half the places I visited were within walking distance including the first place I hit with my sister and brother-in-law for breakfast, Fractured Prune.  This is a doughnut shop where they make the doughnuts to order and you pick a glaze flavor, a drizzle & topping.  They have some pre-named combo like the Peach Pie which has peach glaze, powdered sugar & pastry crumbles.  There are hundreds of combos.  The kids they had working here were all really friendly and willing, nay eager, to explain how it worked and help you pick the flavor combo that fit your want.  So many calories, so little time.

For lunch we walked to the end of the road to the Hot Diggity Dogz stand.  The weather was pleasant and there was a nice breeze blowing so dining outdoors was not a problem.  At first I couldn’t tell if the young guy working the order window was fake enthusiastic or really that dang happy with his job.  Turns out he was that dang happy.  After we got served and no one else was at the window he came out to check out how liked the dogs and chat for a bit.  Nice kid.  For my part I got a Beach Dog & a Surfer Dog.

The dogs are all beef and served on a potato bun.  The Beach Dog is further dressed with chili, mustard, onion & slaw and quite tasty.  The Surfer Dog was decked out with mustard, melted cheese and bacon and as you no doubt assumed it was worth the walk.

The next morning after a cup of coffee and wave watching therapy on the deck I strolled down to the New York Corner Deli for some breakfast.  It has the New York deli at the beach feel I’m sure they were going for.  They have a deli set up where you can get meats, cheeses, salads, etc that you’d expect and they have a simple but something for everyone breakfast menu.  I didn’t spend much time looking at it though because I knew what I wanted; a toasted sesame bagel acting as a delivery vehicle for sausage, egg & cheese.

The bagel was nice and chewy with toasted sesame seeds on the exterior.  I very much like toasted sesame seeds and when you throw in the breakfast ingredients it was delicious.  I was surprised to find the sausage was sliced up links rather than a patty.  I just assumed they’d use patties since they are roundish like the bagel but the substitution did not hurt the overall experience at all.  The coffee was nothing special but it was coffee so it served its purpose.  I did get a dozen bagels to take back for the others and discovered at that point the bagels are not necessarily made on site since a couple of the types I selected were still frozen.  In fairness they did let me know up front that was the case in case I wanted to change my mind.  I didn’t and when toasted back at the house and smeared with cream cheese they did the job.

After some beach time and reading lunch was courtesy of Spudees a few blocks away.  Another outside dining experience but the tables & picnic tables had umbrellas to provide some shade from the sun so it was pleasing.  I checked them out online before heading there and they had me at poutine.

This was likely the most Canadian poutine of the several I’ve had.  It consisted of french fries topped with a generous serving of cheese curd and both of those covered with hot beef gravy.  The fries were well cooked but not crispy.  The cheese curd initially had the consistency of mozzarella but softened and melted under the heat of the beef gravy which also had a hearty flavor profile.  I got the medium size and brothers & sisters let me tell you I needed the walk back to the house because it was a boatload of food and good enough I ate every single bite.  They had several other types of poutine as well but I had to try the original.

The next day after another grueling regimen of wave watching and a stroll to the beach some of us headed to The Shuckin Shack for some shuckin seafood.

It would have been wrong to go to a place called the Shuckin Shack without trying the oysters so I had a half dozen steamed.  They were ok if you baptized them in butter and added some of the provided horseradish.  I’ve honestly had better served up by my grandfather & cousin but as I said they weren’t bad.  For my real food I got the crab cake sliders.  They had good crab flavor and held together reasonably well considering they got a bit squeezed being a sandwich and all.  The tartar sauce they brought was tasty as well and unlike most was laced with horseradish.  There was no hurry up in the game of our waiter but about half way through we picked up a second server who was helping things along and she was great.  She had some pep in her step, a smile on her face and a pleasantly professional demeanor.  It didn’t change the flavor of the food but I liked the metal serving trays they used and of course there was a bucket recessed into the table to toss your various shells and detritus into.  Overall it was a better than average lunch.

That’s a wrap on part 1.  In summary the first half of the trip was loaded with great to good service and delicious food.

Almost Canadian

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Food Truck & Ciderworks

Today I decided I’d try to find a food truck as it had been a while since I had something from meals on wheels.  A bit of internet sleuthing turned up Almost Homecooking Food Truck and they were celebrating their 1 year anniversary parked at Good Road Ciderworks who was also celebrating their 1 year anniversary so that seemed like an excellent pairing.

Just a short run up the interstate and couple of left turns had me right in front of the Good Road and Almost Homecooking was parked right out front.

I got there fairly early and there weren’t many people so seating was plentiful, both inside and out.  I determined right off the bat I was dining outside at one of the picnic tables because it was such a glorious spring day.  I got a big smile and “Welcome” from the lady with the wristbands who directed me inside and told me to make sure I asked about the specials.  The had excellent classic rock pumping from the speakers outside and in so they got points for good taste.

I started by ordering my food since I know the trucks usually take a bit of time to get things in order.  They had some nice looking choices like pork belly tacos, beef sliders, lamb sliders, a cuban sandwich, truffle fries, and several other options all of which sounded good.  What caught my eye though was the Southern Poutine and that’s what I ordered.  While they worked up my poutine I went inside to pick my accompanying adult beverage.

The tasting room is good sized and two stories so there are plenty of places to sit and sip.  There are two bars, one seems to be the cider bar and the other the mead bar based on my experience but that may not be wholly accurate.  They have a number of different ciders and meads but I figured I’d start with one of the special releases and got the Rum Barrel Aged Cranberry Crossroads cider.

This is their normal cranberry & apple cider, you guessed it, aged in a rum barrel.  It was pretty good, definitely had the tartness of the cranberries and a hint of rum but not much and while they describe it as semi-dry it seemed straight up dry to me.  I nursed it while waiting on my poutine and about halfway through I got the call.

What pray tell is Southern Poutine you ask?  Well let me tell you it’s not quite the same as Canadian poutine.  It consists of a heaping helping of crinkle cut fries topped with some chunks of smoked pork shoulder, some light brown gravy and pimento cheese.  When I picked up the container I knew by weight I wasn’t going to finish all of it and when I popped it open and saw the mountain of food that just confirmed it.  Wow this was a tasty and truly filling meal.  The fries were cooked so they were crisp enough on the outside to aid structural integrity but still could soak up some gravy.  I was initially disappointed at what seemed like a paltry amount of the smoked pork but it was just spread out over and under the fries and hiding in the gravy.  The pork was diced into about half inch chunks and had a great smokey flavor.  The brown gravy was light and I’m not sure if it was the gravy or the pimento cheese but one of them had some spicy heat.  Not too much but you knew there were peppers involved.  The pimento cheese just melted into the rest to make a gloppy mess that was a pleasure to dredge fries through.  Just a few bites in and I needed a liquid refill so ran back inside to grab another of the specials.  This time the BBA Buckled Clover Mead.

This was outstanding.  The BBA stands for bourbon barrel aged and the buckled clover mead is a sweet clover & buckwheat honey mead.  The first thing you notice is the smell which you might think would be bourbon heavy but it was a deep honey smell with a faint whiff of the bourbon.  The taste is sweet as advertised and the first thing you notice followed rapidly by the bourbon taste without the alcohol burn and then it finishes with what I would have to call a bit of a floral cinnamony taste.  That stuff was good enough I bought a 1 liter growler I’ll be sipping on for good long time because a little does go a long way.  The mead did go better with the Southern Poutine than the cider.  The sweet and the heat played off one another nicely.

My interaction with the folks from Almost Homecooking was limited but they were very nice and one of them did come over and ask me how I liked the poutine and thanked me for giving them a try.  The Good Road people were also really friendly and helpful.  If they don’t know you they ask if this is your first time and give a quick explanation of the products and provide you with a menu that gives the characteristics of the various ciders and meads.  The one disappointment was that because they expected to be so busy they weren’t doing flights today and I really had hoped to try several different ciders.

I have a feeling I’ll be over in that neighborhood again.  From my seat out front at the picnic table at the ciderworks I could see two breweries and a distillery at least two of which had tasting rooms and possibly restaurants, I didn’t stop to check.  I also know there is at least one more cider place and a couple of other breweries within a couple mile radius of the area.

Overall a very successful outing on a fantastic spring day to dine al fresco.

Oh! Canada

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Canada

Canadian stamp

That’s right it’s a country, they have food.  What they don’t really have is Canadian restaurants.  As I was lamenting the fact that North America is sadly underrepresented on the blog and since I’d done Mexico already it wasn’t going to get much better.  Then it hit me, find some place that serves poutine.  That’s Canadian so it’d do.  A quick search turned up 3 possibilities and two of them looked like hipster gastropubs so I decided the Friendly Moose in Matthews, NC was the place to go.

From the outside it looks like a good sized brick house that has been converted to a restaurant / bar and inside kind of continues that look with several rooms with seating.  I sat in the front room since it had a big window and a stunning view of the parking lot.  The moose theme is embraced and there is one in the foyer (see below) as well as a fake stuffed moose head in the front room and a couple of wooden ones outside.  When I got the menu I discovered they do breakfast until 2pm on weekends and was sort of bummed out until I saw they considered poutine a potential breakfast food plus they had a loaded breakfast version which is what I went with.

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I’ve never had poutine before but I knew in general what it was but for those who don’t, standard poutine is French fries and cheese curd covered in brown gravy.  The Friendly Moose breakfast poutine offers options of types of potatoes and gravy.  Poutine purists will likely be scandalized but you can get it with fries, hashbrowns or tater tots and your gravy options are white sausage gravy or standard brown beef gravy.  I kept it standard and went with fries and brown gravy but the loaded breakfast poutine came with 2 eggs, a biscuit and one of several meat options.  I was hoping they had Canadian bacon but no such luck.  Sausage it was then.  They don’t use cheese curd but use a shredded white cheese that was stringy but didn’t seem to be mozzarella.  Whatever it was it tasted ok but was very break resistant in it’s stringiness.

As breakfasts go this was decent and filling.  If I visit the Moose again I will likely go with tots over fries and if I’m going off the rails I might as well try the sausage gravy too.

If I lived in Matthews I could see making this a regular place as it does have the Friendly feel.  The only issue I saw was the apparent preciousness of butter.  I heard two people have to ask for some before my food arrived so I was on alert and when there was none immediately asked for it.  I got it after asking a second time and I was well on my way to being done.  In the grand scheme of things that’s a pretty minor deal.

And for the record while there were plenty of meese, I didn’t see any sign of a Captain or a flying squirrel. Here’s the web link, The Friendly Moose and don’t forget to check out the Tell Me More page for a poutine recipe and the #1 Canadian song ever according to the CBC.