La Belle Patate

La Belle Patate
1215 Davie Street
Vancouver, BC

Once again, a poutine post! Earlier this year, I had poutine for the first time (you can check it here) and on summer I had poutine again (you can check it here). While I seldom have it, at least I now know what to expect and, as a result, know what I want in it. One day, while walking on Davie Street, I notice a shop being setup – which space was occupied formerly by a Chinese restaurant. So far so good… But, on another day, I noticed they had their menu outside: It was mostly poutine (plus smoked meats and other side items)! And, with that French name “La Belle Patate”, most likely it would be from Quebec. That meant I had to come once they were open!

I went there on the Monday after they officially opened. But, rather than go by myself, I needed a “special” volunteer: ZF, who hails from Quebec but has been for some years here in Vancouver. The reason was obvious: If a Quebecois likes it, who am I to dislike it? So, there we went for lunch. While having poutine as the main item and having a French name wasn’t enough, there were two things that threw out all doubts of their origins: they were speaking French in the back and a flag of the Habs. With that settled, it was a matter of what to order.

ZF went for the basic poutine – medium size. Unfortunately, I did not use anything for reference purposes but this is one of your regular aluminum containers. Yup, it was that big and just for $7.50! Since ZF already got the basic version, I had to go for something else. Since smoked meats was their “other” specialty, what better than go for smoked meat poutine, which is basically the same poutine but with pieces of smoked meat.

So, how where the poutine? The fries were OK. Actually, provided they were fried OK, that won’t have matter that much since they were going to be smothered with gravy and will end up mushy, anyway. Now, here is an interesting detail: While they were “thin”, they were not overly thin cut, which would have lead to an extremely crispy fries. Either that or they were able to pull them out of the fryer before they reached that state. As for the gravy, it had a “shine” on it which makes me believe it was not made from a pack or powder. The fact it did wasn’t too salty, yet had some savouriness in it, partially confirms that though – but, of course, I might be mistaken here. Finally, the cheese… In the two previous instances where I had poutine, they were almost mozzarella type, i.e., they were soft and melted by the time I was half way through. But, here, they were different: It started with that squeaky bite and did not melt almost at all. In fact, it still had the shape by the end of the meal (though that squeaky bite was partially gone)..

As for the smoked meat, not sure if I will call it “smoked”, it was more on the lines of steamed with some hints of smokey in the end. Of course, making an assessment here would be unfair given that I was more focused on the poutine. Still, I found it was interesting enough to warrant me to come back some other day to try their smoked meat sandwich.

Overall, I found this offering different from the ones I have had previously and I will have to say I like this one way better than the previous offerings. Yes, feel free to say I will come back (though the question is *when* I will have poutine again!). But, this post is not that much about me, rather, it was about ZF: Did *he* liked it? When he said he will bring his kids to try their poutine, I think that was good enough.

And to close this post…

Tagged under: Canadian • Lunch • Vancouver • West End