The Unvegan

Sometimes life beats the crap out of you. Other times, it gives you exactly what you want. So when what I wanted was some good new food in Pasadena, Spudds suddenly appeared and fulfilled the latter. You see, Spudds specializes in poutine and I am a man who loves his fries with gravy and cheese curds. Plus, as far as I know, Spudds is the only original (unlike Smoke’s Poutinerie in Hollywood, which as you probably know from reading up here has a number of outposts in Canada) poutine spot in all of the LA area. 

But Spudds is about more than just poutine, serving up real American food like burgers and hot dogs as well. I decided to get the Earlybird, which comes topped with cheese (American or Swiss), a fried egg and bacon, plus a choice of bun. Also, veggies, which I passed on. Then I went against my usual rule with poutine of getting it straight up and ordered the Sausage Fest instead. This was normal poutine, but topped with slices of beef, Polish and Cajun sausages.

Both of these were great choices. I ate my Earlybird with American cheese and a pretzel bun and couldn’t have been happier with this fast food-style burger. It’s not going to win any gourmet competitions, but it definitely hit the spot and supposedly the beef is never frozen, which is typically a good thing. Actually, if I could change anything I would have made the egg runnier, but again this has to be thought of in the fast food vein.

The poutine was definitely better than I expected. The fries were crispy, the cheese was curdy and the gravy wasn’t overly salty, which can often be a problem with poutine. On top of all that, the sausages actually enhanced the mix of flavors instead of distracting from them. It also avoided a common poutine issue of lack of gravy leading to dry fries. All of this made me a happy man.

In fact, my biggest disappointment was that this was simply too much food for one man. I couldn’t handle all that good stuff, but I know that I will be back and bring a friend to share in the joy of American and Canadian food.