Poutine in Vancouver?

Before I’m shunned by the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec for eating and writing about poutine in Vancouver, I need to premise it by saying nothing beats poutine in Montreal. I had heard people talking of Fritz for a while now, but I had held off going since it seemed like a sacrilegious act. So one night recently, it was about 2am and after an evening of Blackjack with some friends, the decision was unaminous, let’s go for poutine! We obviously were not the only one with the idea as the line-up was out the door and easily 15 people long.

Poutine = Fries, gravy and cheese curds

So with that prelude, Fritz European Fry House does a pretty decent job if you’re looking for the trio of fries, cheese curds and gravy AND you find yourself about 5000 km’s away from the province of Quebec. The fries are fresh, handcut, seasoned and quite good with a nice crunchy exterior.  As for the gravy, it was tasty, but it was a little thicker than what you typically find in Quebec. The cheese itself was  good, but disappointing as it didn’t have the elastic effect you get when the cheese is melted down by the heat of the fries and gravy.

Menu at Fritz

It may not be the birthplace of poutine, but even in Vancouver, you can find yourself  a very good poutine.

718 Davie Street (corner of Granville)
Vancouver, BC
V6Z 1B6
(604) 684-0811

Hours

• Monday – Closed
• Tuesday – 11:30am-2:30am
• Wednesday – 11:30am-2:30am
• Thursday – 11:30am-3:30am
• Friday – 11:30am-4:00am
• Saturday – 12:o0pm-4:00am
• Sunday – 1:00pm-2:30am

Cheeseburger cupcakes – enough said!

This is what food blogging is all about, sharing among old friends and new readers (and maybe new friends) little treasures like a Cheeseburger cupcake! So credit for this goes to my friend Kate who put up a great link which can be found below. Her page has spawned cheeseburger cupcakes all over the place! Her page has a great how-to photo gallery, so I will let that be the instructional side, while I will offer a couple of suggestions and some other photos of my attempts.

I’ve now made these twice and it’s something that you will perfect as you learn what works best for you. As you can see from the pictures, the vanilla cupcake is the “bun” and the chocolate cupcake is the “patty”. What I have found is that a more realistic “patty” can be made by pouring only half the cake mix in the muffin tin (i’ll explain the use of the other half below) and then slicing off the top giving you a flat patty that sits flush on the bottom of the vanilla “bun”. However, more importantly this flat surface allows you to load up the “condiments” without them sliding off of it had you left it with a pointy cupcake top for the “patty”.

Wow, I hope that made sense!

With the extra chocolate mix, I baked it in a shallow cake tin, cut them in thin strips and froze them to serve with the burgers in an attempt to make chocolate fries! They didn’t look as realistic as I had hoped, but I was happy with the idea. Of course, since there were fries, I figured they should be accompanied with something, so I made chocolate pudding for a “gravy”. I’ve made this recipe before to huge success and I’ll post the recipe tomorrow along with a homemade whipped cream recipe that together makes an elegant yet simple dessert! https://tastesbetterwithfriends.wordpress.com/category/pudding/

Cheeseburger cupcake, chocolate fries and chocolate gravy pudding

Back to the cheeseburgers now, the condiments are plentiful…

• There are a bunch of different colors of icing to simulate mustard, ketchup, mayo.
• For the “cheese” portion, I used vanilla icing and the played around with red and yellow coloring to make orange.
• Green coloring with shredded coconut to make relish or lettuce
• I cut up maraschino cherries to make slices of tomatoes
• The finishing touch are some sesame seeds on top of the bun, simply smear a bit of butter and then sprinkle so they stick.
• For presentation purposes, it’s important to try and line the outside of the patty with icing so when the bun goes on top, you see the “ketchup, mustard, etc” oozing out like it normally would.

I’ve now made them twice, once for a birthday party and the other time for a potluck dinner and they are still being talked about.  If you ever need something that will make you memorable, look to the cheeseburger cupcake!

Tastes better with friends

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katedw/sets/72157617528706606/