The Daily Poutine at Disney Springs in Orlando, FL

The Daily Poutine is one of the newish restaurants which opened in the new section of Disney Springs. They are fast food with some nearby outdoor seating. I was a big fan of trying the different versions of poutine when I was in Quebec last year, so I was excited to try some Floridian theme park poutine.

I am not a poutine expert, but I wonder how many of the menu items here would be considered true poutine by connoisseurs of the food? When does a variation of the dish become something else? Looking at something like the restaurant's Latin Poutine where potato fries are replaced with yucca and there isn't gravy or cheese curds, would this still be considered poutine?

I have visited The Daily Poutine twice. The first time I was with someone who had never tried poutine, so we split the Classic. This consisted of french fries, beef gravy, and cheddar cheese curds. It didn't live up to some of the poutines I sampled while in Quebec, but I suppose was good enough for a theme park version of the dish. I've heard that the way to tell if you're having high quality poutine is if the cheese curds make a squeaky noise as you bite into them. The cheese curds here did not squeak...

The second time I dined at The Daily Poutine was when I was intrigued by their All-Day Breakfast Poutine. I'm not sure if this is a daily special or a temporary menu item, but it was advertised on signs sitting on the counter. It was described as fried potato puffs, sausage gravy, and cheddar curds topped with a fried egg. Again, this was veering away from what I think of poutine with tater tots instead of fries and white sausage gravy instead of brown gravy. Regardless, this breakfast poutine was actually really tasty. The gravy had a lot more flavor compared to what I normally think of when it comes to white gravy. I've been liking foods topped with fried eggs lately, so that topping made me like the poutine more.

The Disney version of poutine didn't quite make me feel like I was eating true French-Canadian junk food, but the food was decent enough. Definitely better than normal french fries topped with ketchup...

Quebec Boulangeries

While in Quebec, I had breakfast almost every day at a different bakery. Quebec City has some excellent bakeries and they are all over the city. My first bakery experience was actually in the Montreal Airport while I was waiting for a connecting flight to Quebec City.

Second Cup (Montreal Airport)

The restaurant was called Second Cup. It was a coffee shop which sold assorted pastries and sandwiches. I was initially going to get a sandwich, but even in Canadian dollars, the sandwich prices here were insane for something pre-made. The pastries were much more reasonable and I ordered an almond croissant. The croissant was filled with almond paste and topped with slivered almonds and powdered sugar. It was good for airport food, but much better croissants were coming in Quebec City.

La Boite a Pain (Limoilou)

In Quebec City's Limoilou neighborhood. This was my first experience in Quebec where I felt lost with not being fluent in French. Nobody in here instantly switched to English with my first word of bad French, and I was lost once entire sentences of words I didn't recognize were spoken to me. Turned out nobody working in here spoke English (Yay! It actually felt like International travel!), but I was able to get the point across that I wanted an almond croissant. It was much better than the almond croissant from the airport.

La Fournee Bio Boulangerie Artisanale (Limoilou)

I think I would say La Fournee Bio Boulangerie is my personal favorite restaurant that I found in Quebec City. The bakery items here were amazing. There were pastries, breads, sandwiches, and all sorts of other baked goods. The shelves of deliciousness were perfectly laid out, all looking beautiful. This was another place where very little English was spoken. The employee's very broken English and my very limited French allowed me to order here. Multiple times. I think I ended up here at least four times during six days in Quebec City.

Ham and cheese croissant.

Almond Crossant

Turkey sandwich. This was my least favorite thing here. Stick with the baked goods rather than a pre made sandwich.

Brulerie Limoilou
Brulerie Limoilou was more of a coffee shop than bakery, but they did sell baked goods. I stopped in here upon somebody's recommendation for a snack.

I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. Nothing was wrong with it, but it was pretty forgettable in the big scheme of deliciousness which was eaten on my trip. It was a bit pricy as well for what ended up being half of a full grilled cheese. 

Paillard 

I had breakfast at Paillard one morning in Quebec's Old City. I couldn't really figure out if this restaurant was a chain or not, but I definitely got that vibe. The restaurant was doing a huge amount of tourist business. There were very few open tables and they had a constant line. I ordered one of their breakfast combos, which included a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant, fruit, and a coffee. The buttery croissant and bacon resulted in a very greasy sandwich. Still, it was much better than the Tim Hortons bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.

Croissant Gourmet in Winter Park, FL

SunRail has officially started service in Orlando as of this week. In order to try out the new train, I decided to ride to Winter Park to get some lunch. You can read all about my experience riding SunRail on a new blog that I started called FloridaTrainAdventures.com. After I got off the train, I walked over to a French restaurant called Croissant Gourmet.

Croissant Gourmet is a French bakery, serving all sorts of delicious looking croissants, pastries, crepes, and sandwiches.

I ordered a sandwich called the Croque Monsieur topped with an egg. I've heard this sandwich also described as a croque madame if egg is involved, but according to the menu this was a croque monsieur. The sandwich consisted of two slices of bread, ham, melted cheese, and a fried egg over the top. Once the yolk was broken, the runny egg was absorbed into the bread giving the sandwich an extra burst of flavor. A salad was served on the side.

I shared a cinnamon raisin roll for dessert. It had a nice, flaky, almost croissant-like texture that I enjoyed. The roll was topped with powdered sugar and was tasty.

I enjoyed my meal at Croissant Gourmet. The food was good, and although it wasn't the cheapest restaurant around, it was more affordable than a couple other similar French bakeries that I've visited. After my meal, I returned to the train station and rode home...

La Madeleine Country French Cafe in Alexandria, VA

As per a DC resident's suggestion, I found myself across the Potomac River in Alexandria, VA. This city had a neighborhood known as Old Town which reminded me a bit of St. George Street in St. Augustine. It was somewhat historic and had all sorts of shops and restaurants on a 16 block stretch from the Metro station down to the river. Fake trolleys drove up and down the streets. Ghost tours were offered. All that typical tourist stuff that old cities like this have. While in Alexandria, I had dinner at a restaurant called La Madeleine Country French Cafe. This restaurant turned out to be a chain, set up very similar to a Panera. I wasn't a fan.

I ordered the sandwich/soup combination that the restaurant offered. For my soup, I had the cream of potato, topped with cheese and bacon. The soup was alright for what it was, but very typical of a creamy soup like this.

For my sandwich, I had the Croque Monsieur. This was basically a ham and cheese sandwich with a garlic cream sauce. If the ham and cheese had all been inside of the bread, I don't think I would have had issues here. Unfortunately, La Madeleine melted an excess of swiss cheese on top of the sandwich. This ended up being cheese overkill, with the abundance of goopy cheese taking precedence over all other flavors in the sandwich. It was too much, and I ended up leaving about half of my half sandwich. If there was less cheese inside of the sandwich, the cheese on top wouldn't have been too bad, but the combination of inside and outside cheese was the turning point for me. Pasta salad was served on the side, which I also didn't care for. It had a very strong tomato taste which I wasn't liking.

I don't think I'd return to a La Madeleine location again...

Le Macaron in Winter Park, FL

Macarons, not to be confused with macaroons, are a type of French cookies that were completely new to me. I always knew macaroons as those coconut cookies that seem to cross all cultural boundaries, found everywhere from Kosher food stores to Vietnamese markets to Latin-American markets. It seems like the whole world loves those little mounds of coconut, so when I first heard about French macarons from Droolius at a Foodspotting dinner, I assumed these were the same type of cookie. Apparently the difference is more than one less 'o' in the name...

 A couple months later I visited Le Macaron in downtown Winter Park to finally try a French macaron. Le Macaron is a little shop tucked away in an alley off Park Avenue. Macarons are the main focus of this shop, but they also had a very limited selection of chocolates for sale as well. There was a gelato case too, but it was empty on the day I visited.

At $1.80 each the macarons were a bit expensive for the small size of the pastry. Regardless, I got a box of six macarons. Picking out the flavors got a little weird though when the grumpy employee helping us interrupted filling our box to offer her friend that had walked in after us a free sample of a macaron. Besides being a little sour that we didn't get offered any free cookies, our macarons were soon taken home to be tasted.

I tried several flavors and the Pistachio, Basil & White Chocolate, and Raspberry macarons were my favorites. The cookies had a crispy outer shell surrounding a gooey inside that almost reminded me of marzipan. These were definitely some tasty little cookies and were not that macaroons that I've known. With all the different flavors that were offered, I really wanted to try more but $1.80 per cookie is a bit pricy to go crazy. Perhaps another visit is eventually necessary...

If you haven't tried a macaron, definitely pay this place a visit. They're desserts that most people seem oblivious to. Because of that, you must try these expensive little cookies...