Smoke's Poutinerie

Smoke’s Poutinerie

131 Albert St

204-253-2873

http://smokespoutinerie.com/

January, 2012

Although I normally don’t include chain restaurants in my reviews, I find Smoke’s Poutinerie unique enough where I feel the need to comment.  Smoke has locations throughout Canada and recently established itself in the heart of Winnipeg’s Exchange District (at the former Glass Onion).  I can’t think of a better location for a diner catering to fast-food customers and exclusively to poutine lovers.  Hungry patrons on-the-go can easily grab a plate of flavoured fries and rush back to the Borg cube to watch the next outdoor performance.   

That’s the premise anyway.  In reality, Smoke’s first summer saw continued line-ups well out the door, regardless of time-of-day.  With only one bench and a couple of tiny tables for seating inside, and one picnic table outside, you can’t help but walk away with your fries, and yet the line-ups persist.  Our bitter winter finally slew the line but we’ll see if the popularity returns with the mild weather.

Good to its name, Smoke specialises in poutines—actually, Smoke ONLY serves poutine so if you want anything other than heart-hammering fries smothered with gravy and cheese curds, you better go somewhere else.  Curds is the key word here as many of Winnipeg’s “poutines” try to pass simple melted cheese (or by blasphemy, processed cheese) as the normal topping.  I can almost guarantee that if you serve a Quebecois fries with processed cheese, you’d get a response similar to a pie-in-the-face.  If you’re not going to use curds, don’t bother trying to peddle poutine.  

Essential poutine only has three fundamental ingredients:  cheese curds, gravy and fries.  If you can’t get the curds right, you already screwed up one-third of your meal.  Smoke’s poutines come with great big chunks of delicious curds—I just wish there could be a little more of it.  The plentiful gravy looks deep and thick but it could use a bit more flavouring and seasoning.  The home-cut fries taste crispy and moist at the same time, making for the perfect conduit in sopping up the variety of dressings.  Smoke makes a fine, basic poutine but its gimmick lies in its diverse selection of accompaniments, featuring almost 20 toppings on tap.  

The pulled pork comes in its own sauce (presumed to be a chipotle barbecue sauce), that I find too sweet.  The sweet edge of the sauce battles with the savory nature of the gravy and you end up with a goopy war that’s neither complimentary nor contrasting, but conflicting.  The shredded pork tastes fine, but not with the gravy mixture.  If you want to try this option, ask them to skip the gravy and give you extra sauce.

Smoke offers several iterations of chicken as well as beef toppings.  Each of the beef options comes with a generous helping of shredded meat.  Because of the versatility of beef, I think these combos fit better as a poutine complement than the pork cousin.  The chilli beef poutine gives you the same impression that you normally get from a big messy plate of fatboy chilli burger that inevitably spills over to the side of fries.  Although I wouldn’t call it classic, it’s a common enough olio of heart-hunting ingredients that pique many people’s appetites.  Put that together with prime ingredients and you have a tasty rendition of a diner staple.

If you want to give your heart a bit of a break, Smoke also offers a number of vegetable toppings.  The sautéed mushrooms add nice flavour and texture, much the same way they add a dimension to your grilled steaks.  To me, most foods taste better with some stir-fried mushrooms.  I can’t say the same about the peas however.  The large orbs taste surprisingly hard and they glow eerily fluorescent green.  As a highlighter, they give wonderful colour to the naturally bland colours of the poutine.  This dish reminds me of a typical Canadian spring garden, where the winter snow washes the garden clear, and leaves patches of brown turf.  The peas offer the first signs of life—like tulips poking their heads out of the dirt, unnatural and out-of-place.  They taste the same way.

Smoke also offers pre-established combinations of toppings.  The Italian Deluxe includes sausage, mushrooms, beef and onions—what you may typically find as a pasta meat sauce.  The sausage has wonderful flavours, although it’s a bit overcooked and dry.  The mushrooms and onions come nicely sautéed and the beef holds good seasoning.  The individual ingredients taste good and the combination tastes great.  However, as this is a classic combination for a pasta sauce, it’s also an outrageous combination to add to gravy—again, the incongruence of the basic ingredients leads to a conflict with both the gravy and the fries.  Yup, there’s a reason why Italians pour this sauce on pasta rather than fries.  

Some of the combinations don’t really work but largely, Smoke uses top end ingredients, and that goes a long way towards making a meal great.  Fundamentally, Smoke offers a sound poutine and the rest is just dressing.  Find the dressing that you like and you’ll likely walk away a happy customer.

*** /5

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