Beach House Falcon Lake
1 Lake Blvd
Falcon Lake, MB
Facebook: @beachhousefalconlake
August, 2020
When you have a great location, you often get away with so-so food because people will come regardless. Beach House sits at a great location, right in the heart of the main beach at Falcon Lake. I can come straight out of the water, walk dripping in nothing but my thong up to the order window, grab my food with a beer--and a few minutes later, eat on my towel and jump back into the water. The playground, the boardwalk and the park all lie steps away; you could not pick a better place to put a food stand.
Fitting for the location, the menu offers the usual fast food type of options:
At $12.50, Smokey the Bear is the most expensive item on the menu and more than twice the price of a hamburger. I ask the server how big it is and she shows me the paper plate, which looks quite small. She assures me there's a lot of food and many people can't finish it. Still skeptical, I order and consider a burger as well--she insists it's a lot of food. Instead of a savoury side, I couple Smokey with a Strawberry/Banana Smoothie.
When Smokey comes, it's as I suspected--there is no way this is going to fill me up. I don't exaggerate when I say that I would eat three of these as a normal meal size.
On the good side, the fries taste nicely crispy on the outside, moist and fluffy on the inside. In addition to the fries, Smokey comes with cheese, gravy, chilli and scallions. Let's start with the scallions: where are they? They're green--do you see any green on this dish?
Next, let's talk about the chilli--what see is what you get. That's it. It's not layered so there's nothing underneath. I estimate one tablespoon in total. You can see the big chunks of onion and corn, which taste fine, but the beef tastes complete overcooked and dried--and there's very little of it.
Smokey sits under the heading of Poutine, which means that it should essentially be a poutine, with the extra dressings. Poutines come with cheese curds, but there's no curd here, just crud. The sprinkling of cheese on top is all the cheese there is. Again, it's not layered so what's on top is it, no more than a pinch in total.
The final ingredient, gravy, sits in the same boat as the chilli. They scantily ladle it on top and once you get past the top, there's nothing but dry fries. There's so little, the gravy can't even penetrate the top layer of fries.
In terms of raw ingredients, this plate costs them about $0.25 - somehow they think this cheap mess is worth $12.50. It's a travesty.
We came here with companions, one of whom ordered the veggie burger, the other having the hamburger. The hamburger patron looked at his lunch and asks if the orders are mixed up. The veggie diner peels back the bun and says that it's definitely a veggie burger. The first person goes on to describe the hamburger as "meatish" and tastes about as good as it looks. When your diner cannot tell if your meat is actually meat, there's something wrong with your dish. It's another travesty.
I have some hope that my smoothie would taste good--after all, you can't really screw up a smoothie, unless you cheap out on the ingredients.
Wait a minute, my Smokey the Bear epitomises cheap ingredients. Beach House doesn't disappoint. The strawberry banana smoothie neither tastes like strawberries nor bananas. I am quite certain that no actual fruits went into the blender and all the ingredients come from syrups. Usually, smoothies from syrups taste very sweet, sometimes sickly sweet. That's not true here. They scrimped on the syrup so there's not enough to make it sweet, and definitely not enough to make it taste like fruit. This bland, pinkish coloured beverage has little more taste than a slushie that's been sucked out with just the ice left. And another travesty bowls us over.
Beach House has the great location, but their food isn't so-so. It's not terrible but it's not good. Their use of poorest-grade ingredients leaves you with poor meals. To make things worse, they even cheap out on the poor ingredients. There's a lot of good food to be had in Falcon Lake. Get it before or after you hit the beach. Don't come to the Beach House.
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Ray Yuen, Pit Master, Grill Master
Certified Kansas City Barbecue Society Judge - Badge #97736
Certified Steak Cook-off Association Judge - Badge #7788
Canadian Barbecue Society Member
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