No trip to Canada is complete without at least one stop for poutine. Yes, even outside of the French side of Canada. The internet told me that Poutini’s in West Queen Street West had some of the best in town and I was eager to see if they could live up to the lofty expectations. Like other poutineriess, it had a few different options, but I was most intrigued by their Layered Poutine. This included an extra layer of cheese in the middle, and as much as I like bacon and other such things, this seemed best.

I ordered the regular size instead of their teeny weeny tiny, and watched as the lady behind the counter constructed a beautiful bowl of fries, cheese and gravy. After a few pretty photos, I took my fork to the pile of beauty and was impressed with what I found. The gravy was light without being too plain, and wasn’t too salty either, allowing the full flavor (or should I say flavour?) of the fries and cheese to do their own work. I was very happy with the extra layer of cheese, because more cheese is always good, although I probably would have still been happy with just the regular amount of cheese.

The only downside was that it got a little bit intense at the bottom of the serving. It’s to be expected, but still not ideal.

Nonetheless, I can safely say that this was the best poutine I have ever had (at least since starting up this blog, because I stupidly didn’t start until after going to Montreal). I’d recommend Poutini’s for anyone looking to take down that glorious blend of potato, dairy and meat drippings.

On Saturday, May 7th, Justin Verlander pitched the second no-hitter of his career. It’s a hell of an achievement and certainly one to be proud of. And sure, it’s cool that he is now one of only 30 pitchers in the history of Major League Baseball to throw multiple no-hitters, but the way he celebrated is even cooler.

You see, after his historic pitching game, Verlander headed to a restaurant called Barberians in downtown Toronto. It was there that he achieved his true unvegan glory by chowing down on a steak dinner with his fellow Tigers. Ever the humble Tiger, Verlander said, “To be honest, the thing I’m going to remember is having dinner with those guys.” Damn right he is, because while pitching a no-hitter may be awesome, the memory of steak is eternal. And to further his claim for unvegan glory, he proclaimed, “I’m a filet connoisseur.”

A connoisseur indeed. A connoisseur who pitches no-hitters, eats steaks and finishes off by picking up the check for the table.

So for all of this and for being on the greatest baseball team in the world, Justin Verlander, you are a true Unvegan Hero!

No word on whether he stopped for some poutine after dinner.

(via Tigers.com)

UPDATE 1/11/12: Tonight, Verlander solidified his position as one of the top Unvegan Heroes by professing his love for Taco Bell on Conan. Not only is Taco Bell his pregame tradition, but he orders the Cheesy Gordita Crunch and orders it all without tomatoes. Verlander is simply a winner all around.

A few more beers into the night and not yet having satisfied my craving for poutine in Toronto, my drunken munchies search became a quest for poutine. The quest ended when we discovered Smoke’s Poutinerie in the Queens West area. This place was a chain, but still had the look of a greasy hole-in-the-wall style poutine joint. Their menu had a few different variations of that delicious treat, even one including bacon, but we decided that the traditional was the way to go. We got a large for 8 loonies and waited about 30 seconds for them to toss the fries, curds and gravy into a box for eating.

Now this was how poutine was supposed to be. The curds still retained their shapes and although the food looked deliciously sloppy, you could see exactly what you were about to eat. The gravy tasted different from any I’d ever had with poutine before, but not necessarily in a bad way. After a few bites, we decided it must have come from some sort of foul, be it chicken, turkey or otherwise. And it was delicious, chain or not. Each bite had the perfect mix of ingredients and there was enough gravy and curds in the box so that no fry went unflavored. Even though the gravy was thin, it didn’t destroy the fries completely. They definitely got a bit soggy by the end, but they retained their individuality and I never felt like they had been turned to mush.

It was the perfect treat to end a night of drinking in Toronto. Look out, French-Canada, it looks like I don’t have to travel all the way to your part of the country next time I need some poutine in my belly.

For a night in Toronto, I really didn’t have much of a clue about where to eat. Finally, a buddy of mine told me to check out the Mill Street Brewery. I am always up for a microbrewery since that seems to be a lost art in LA, so I looked it up. It turned out that the place was actually pretty easy walk from our hotel, so we headed to Mill Street to see what we could find. After a twenty minute walk through a mildly sketchy part of town featuring a homeless pirate watering plants with a two-liter of Canada Dry, we arrived at the Distillery area. This part of town was once some sort of huge brewery, but now had shops, restaurants, bars and people testing Smart Cars and Segway Scooters. Even before we started drinking, our goal was to take a drunken ride on/in one of these (no, we did not achieve our goal).

When we got to the Mill Street Brewery, we found that there was about an hour wait. No worries, we were at a brewery and needed some beer before doing anything else anyway. We sidled up to the bar and started to test out their beers. Before we were even seated, I downed their Helles Bock, Tankhouse Ale and Stock Ale. The Tankhouse was my favorite, although the Helles Bock was also pretty good. They had a good amount of options, including rotating taps, so I could definitely see myself returning and having a whole different experience.

After about an hour, the table was ready and we took our seats. A look at the menu revealed some good microbrewery food. Hoping to have a Grizzly Peak-style experience, I set my sights on their burgers. Of these, the Distillery Burger looked the best to me. It came with Mill Street Coffee Porter BBQ sauce, crispy pancetta, Swiss cheese and crispy onions, which sounded great except for those dastardly onions.

There was also something on the menu that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get in Toronto: poutine. Poutine is definitely more of a French-Canadian specialty, so we weren’t sure if it would be any good, but we ordered it anyway as an appetizer. Mill Street had put a bit of bit of a brewhouse twist on the poutine, called Pulled Short Rib Poutine. It was made with fries, alfredo, Tankhouse Ale braised Angus short ribs, green onions, Ontario cheese curds and gravy, of course. I couldn’t convince my compatriots to get it without the green onions, so when it came I had to dig around with my fork to avoid them.

The poutine here was pretty good, but it wasn’t poutine in its truest form. The cheese curds were fully melted by the time it got to the table and the gravy was thick and had soaked through the fries so much that it was pretty much an amorphous blob of gravy, cheese and potatoes. The ribs seemed kind of out of place, although it tasted just fine.

When the main course came, I was glad to see it had been made without vegetables like I asked. You never really now how an unvegan is going to be received in a foreign country. Sadly, despite being free of vegetables, this burger could have used a bit of work. It was a bit overcooked and quite dry. This could have been somewhat compensated for if there had been a lot of BBQ sauce in between those buns, but there just wasn’t enough of that sauce on it. This was too bad, because if it weren’t for this patty, it could’ve been a damn good burger.

Mill Street Brewery was a cool place in a cool part of town, but go for the beer, not for the burgers.