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All stories relating to poutine

Q&A with Chuck Hughes: the hunky Garde Manger chef on tattoos, Mexico City and poutine appropriation

(Image: Yves Freypons)

Since Chuck Hughes opened Garde Manger in 2006, he’s been steadily rising in the celebrity chef world (he even bested Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America back in March). Five months ago, he opened his second restaurant in Montreal, Le Bremner, and then rushed south to shoot Chuck’s Week Off, in which he ate his way across Mexico. When we caught up with him at the Chef’s Challenge fundraiser this weekend, the Montreal native really seemed like he was warming up to the idea of opening up shop in the soulless Big Smoke.

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The Dish

Weekly Lunch Pick

November 28, 2011 | 8:10 am

2 Comments

Weekly Lunch Pick: classic American comfort food out of a downtown truck

(Image: Andrew Brudz)

Spiros Drossos, the chatty co-owner of the Food Cabbie, serves up good ol’-fashioned American comfort food from his shiny new food truck, currently planted at Queen and Mutual. There’s certainly nothing fancy about it, and that’s the point: it’s fast, affordable and very satisfying, and close enough to the Eaton Centre for holiday shoppers looking for sustenance and a break from the crush.

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The Informer

In Transit

October 17, 2011 | 3:45 pm

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High-speed rail travel between Toronto and Quebec could radically affect poutine consumption

The Toronto Star obtained a report that says a high-speed rail link between Toronto and Quebec City is viable, and the details would tantalize anyone who regularly makes the Montreal-to-Toronto trip (or underagers heading to La Belle Province to engage in a little weekend debauchery). The trains would travel between 200 and 300 kilometres an hour, potentially cutting the five-hour trip to Montreal in half. Just think: a two-and-a-half-hour ride could be the only thing separating you from a steaming plate of fries, gravy and cheese curds. Oh, and the 15 years the link would take to build. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

The Dish

Locavoracious

October 13, 2011 | 4:36 pm

2 Comments

In a bid to stop the “mega-quarry,” Michael Stadtländer rallies (nearly) every chef we’ve ever heard of for Foodstock

Michael Stadtländer has rallied 100 of the best chefs from across Canada to participate in Foodstock, an epic, pay-what-you-can public food event on October 16 to raise money to fight the construction of a huge limestone quarry in the town of Honeywood, Ontario. The Highland Companies’ plan aims to span 2,316 acres of land and run 189 feet deep (deeper than Niagara Falls), and will have to pump 600 million litres of groundwater out of the pit each day (about the same amount used by 2.7 million Ontarians), all to extract crushed stone known as amabel dolostone.

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The Dish

Aprons & Icons

March 21, 2011 | 3:04 pm

29 Comments

Chuck Hughes becomes the first Canadian chef to beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef

Chef Chuck Hughes (Image: Cooking Channel)

Chuck Hughes, chef at Montreal restaurant Garde Manger, won Iron Chef America this past weekend, succeeding where few competitors have: Hughes beat culinary master Bobby Flay in the kitchen stadium battle, which featured a secret ingredient of Canadian lobster. Included in Hughes’s winning menu: lobster poutine. Hughes, 34, is the youngest Canadian and second Canuck to win the series, after Vancouver’s Rob Feenie defeated Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto in 2005 (Susur Lee tied with Flay in 2006). Hughes is also the first Quebec chef to compete on the show.

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The Dish

Opening

March 1, 2011 | 12:52 pm

6 Comments

Introducing: Fanny Chadwick’s, a friendly new diner in a familiar Annex spot

Fanny Chadwick’s owners Leanne Martineau and Sarah Baxter (Image: Gizelle Lau)

For years, the house-turned-restaurant at the corner of Dupont and Howland has been something of a neighbourhood eyesore, a reminder to longtime Annex locals of the site’s heyday as Angelo’s Diner. When the most recent tenant, AAA Chinese, shut down, Leanne Martineau (Terroni, Senses) and Sarah Baxter (The Feathers), both Annex residents and 20-year food-industry veterans, decided to bring the old diner back to life. One year and half a million dollars in renovations later, this corner house has been transformed into Fanny Chadwick’s, a neighbourhood diner named after a 19th-century Annex playwright (the chapel at Royal St. George’s College features a stained glass window dedicated to her).

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The Informer

The Sporting Life

January 26, 2011 | 12:31 pm

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Tribute bonanza: Wayne Gretzky celebrates his 50th birthday

The Great One hit the big five-oh today, and news media across the country are rolling out their tributes to the kid from Brantford who became a hockey icon and a Canadian hero. The Globe has a touching walk down memory lane by long-time hockey writer Eric Duhatschek, and the Sun put together a slide show of 50 great Great One moments. But the best—or at least the most fun—comes from the Star, which ran a playful collection of 50 things not many people know about Sir Wayne. For instance, did you know his restaurant serves three styles of poutine (Canadian, American and Tex-Mex)? That he did a cameo on the Young and the Restless? That he’s an Aquarius? And the list goes on.

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The Dish

Culinary Curiosities

December 23, 2010 | 8:32 am

2 Comments

Poutine makes the list of “nine weirdest food festival dishes”

Poutine: we dont see what's so gross about it (Image: joyquality)

We thought that since poutine had established a foothold as far away as New York City that it was slowly shaking its status as a “weird” food, despite being undeniably weird. Apparently not: foodie Web site the Daily Meal has included the symbol of Canadiana on its list of the nine weirdest food festival dishes. On the list, “french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy” rubs shoulders with such fare as deep-fried bull testicles and grilled Spam sushi from the U.S., as well as wasp larvae ice cream from New Zealand.

• 9 Weirdest Food Festival Dishes [Daily Meal]

The Dish

Aprons & Icons

September 27, 2010 | 1:06 pm

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Joys of summer: hanging out with chef Tyler Florence at the Jays game

Tyler Florence at the Rogers Centre (Image: Karon Liu)

The summer may be over, but we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to watch a Jays game with chef Tyler Florence in the coveted 400 seats at the Rogers Centre—especially considering he was letting us taste one of his new creations. Florence was in town with the California Table Grape Commission as part of a five-stadium tour to promote, well, grapes. Specifically, he and his colleagues want the fruit to be sold in cups at the concession stands as a healthy alternative to peanuts and Cracker Jacks. After throwing the first pitch, Florence rushed upstairs, grabbed a beer and waxed poetic about healthy eating.

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The Dish

Read All About It

September 23, 2010 | 4:37 pm

1 Comment

Canadians are fat, even by rich-people standards

In the past few years, Toronto has been overrun by gourmet dining options of the fattening variety. Whether they’re serving gourmet poutine made with duck confit or lovingly hand-crafted burgers topped with rosemary mayo, some of the hottest places to eat are also the fattiest. That may be one of the reasons that a new study has found Canadians are getting chunky, even compared to the residents of other wealthy countries (well, not the U.S., U.K. or Australia).

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The Hype

TIFF Talk

September 10, 2010 | 12:04 pm

1 Comment

Canada overload at the TIFF official opening party

It doesn't get more Canadian than this: Ron MacLean, everybody (Image: Karon Liu)

Remember the Canadian content of the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Olympics? That was nothing compared to the scene at the Liberty Grand last night as a who’s who of this country’s power Gentiles (it was Rosh Hashanah) met to rub elbows and try to come up with something nice to say about Score: A Hockey Musical.

Think of a Canadian television show and, chances are, the cast was there. Come to think of it, the whole shebang was like a CBC cocktail party: Erin Karpluk and Adam Fergus from Being Erica, contestants from the upcoming season of Battle of the Blades, Ron MacLean from Hockey Night in Canada, the fire-breathing entrepreneurs from Dragons’ Den, and Strombo. Supermodel Monica Schnarre, as Citytv’s TIFF correspondent, distracted many people from those actually walking the red carpet, including, we hear, David Schwimmer, Morgan Spurlock and Emily Haines.

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The Dish

From the Print Edition

August 4, 2010 | 12:08 pm

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Best of the City 2010: 14 picks for the top food in Toronto

Leaf fan: Matchbox Gardens grows rare and wonderful lettuces (Image: Jay Shuster)

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The Informer

The Yanks

July 13, 2010 | 8:35 am

3 Comments

Huffington Post notes Canada’s existence, job numbers

Keep left is more like it: HuffPo eyes the border (Image: TheTruthAbout)

In a post voiced somewhere between a zoo plaque for children and a swindling travel brochure, U.S. news site HuffPo tells its readership that Canada may be an excellent place to direct unemployed Americans:

Stubbornly high unemployment rates got you down? Not sold on the economic recovery? Look no further than America’s polite neighbor to the north, where jobs numbers are surging and home prices have been rising steadily for nearly a year.

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The Dish

Culinary Curiosities

June 21, 2010 | 1:10 pm

6 Comments

Canada escapes the haters’ list of the world’s worst food

Bangers and mash: British cuisine shatters no stereotypes (Image: Andy Bullock)

When it comes to gastronomical atrocities, it seems bangers and mash and sauerkraut are more poorly regarded than poutine and peameal bacon. The Huffington Post has published the results of an ongoing Titanic Awards survey that names the top nine countries with the worst national cuisine. Much to our delight, the survey of over 2,000 people from more than 80 countries didn’t name Canada among the worst offenders.

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The Dish

Culinary Curiosities

May 27, 2010 | 9:07 am

6 Comments

“Worst beverage in America” available at Tim Hortons

(Image: Marc Majcher)

Just as Canadians were congratulating themselves on their nation-wide health consciousness for rejecting the allure of the Double Down comes the news that Canada’s national ambassador, Tim Hortons, is home to a snack that makes KFC’s sodium speedball look positively ascetic. The drink that Men’s Health has declared the “worst beverage in America” is available right here in the GTA, all thanks to Timmies’ penchant for brand partnerships.

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