Joe Smoked Meat in Quebec City, QC

Smoked meats seem to be another food that's popular in Quebec. I passed several restaurants specializing in smoked meat, so I figured I'd try one. I ended up at Joe Smoked Meat in downtown Quebec City. Looking at their website now, it looks like they are a chain. Didn't know that at the time.

They had smoked meats served various ways. Someone I ate here with had smoked meat poutine. I decided to go with a sandwich instead and ordered the Assiette Garnie. Out of all the menus in Quebec City, I had the most trouble translating/understanding this one. Because of this, I picked my sandwich mostly because there was a picture of the Assiette Garnie on the menu. The sandwich reminded me of something found in a Kosher style NY Deli. Sliced meat was piled upon rye bread with spicy mustard. Fries, coleslaw, and a pickle were served on the side. I never confirmed for sure what sort of animal the smoked meat was from, but I'm assuming beef. The smoked meat in the sandwich was tasty, but I had the same complaint which I have in the Kosher delis. There was too much meat and not much else going on in the sandwich. Some other flavors would have been nice.

D'Orsay in Quebec City, QC

I found that Quebec City seems to shut down pretty early. I was looking for dinner one evening around 9:30, and almost everywhere in the Old City was closed or closing for the night. D'Orsay was one of the few restaurants which was still open, so that's where I ate.

Because I was in a French speaking province, I felt the need to order French Onion Soup for some reason. The soup here was a bit overpriced. Still, the tasty bowl was filled with salty broth, soggy bread, and topped with lots of cheese. Can't go wrong.

I ordered a lamb sandwich for my meal. The sandwich was served on fig bread (according to the menu- I detected no figs). There was a huge mound of thinly sliced, tender lamb between the bread, with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. A mixed green salad and fries were served alongside the sandwich. Everything was tasty and the sandwich exceeded my expectations!

For the limited choices of this evening's meal, D'Orsay was a very nice choice!

Tim Hortons in Quebec City, QC

Tim Hortons is a fast food restaurant that had locations all over Quebec. I was told they were the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin Donuts. Because this chain was so prevalent, I decided to see what they were all about. I stopped into a Tim Hortons attached to a gas station in Quebec's Limoilou neighborhood.

The menu here was very similar to a Dunkin Donuts. They had a selection of doughnuts and pastries available, along with a menu of breakfast sandwiches and drinks. I tried their Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich. It was what I would expect from a fast food breakfast sandwich. Microwaved eggs, processed cheese, and a couple slices of bacon. Interestingly enough, I didn't come across Canadian bacon anywhere in Canada. Turns out they don't call it Canadian bacon in Canada...

I also tried a Maple Glazed Boston Creme Doughnut. It was tasty, with a really strong maple syrup flavor.

For the last couple days of my stay in Canada, I used some rewards points for a free hotel room in the neighboring town of Levis. Getting back to Quebec City involved a 6 km walk and a ferry ride. On one of these walks, we got hungry and ended up stopping in another Tim Hortons. This location was stand alone and had a much larger menu than the gas station Tim Hortons.

I had a Chicken Salad Sandwich, served on a croissant with lettuce and tomato. Again, it was about what I would expect from a fast food restaurant. The chicken salad had a strong mayonnaise flavor, and  the croissant seemed very mass produced.

I can now say I've tried a Tim Hortons. Being that the chain was bought out by Burger King not too long ago, I wonder if we will see some Tim Hortons locations start popping up in Florida any time soon?

Quebec City Shish-Taouk (Fistons and Mechoui Marrakech)

While poutine is perhaps the most famous must-eat food in Quebec, another food that I had read about before visiting and came across over and over again in the city was shish-taouk. Shish-taouk seems to be the French Canadian version of chicken shawarma. There were restaurants that specialized exclusively in shish-taouk, and I ended up sampling the dish twice while in Quebec.

Fistons (Limoilou)

My first shish-taouk experience was at a restaurant in Quebec's Limoilou neighborhood. They specialized in pizza and shish taouk. Since shish-taouk was on their sign, I decided I must try the Sandwich Shish Taouk. The shish-taouk here was served inside a pita. Accompanying the chicken was lettuce, tomato, pickled turnips, and some sort of creamy sauce. I was a little disappointed with this sandwich. For a food that Quebec is apparently famous for, this chicken was very bland. There wasn't much flavor besides the taste of chicken. The turnips inside the pita were a nice touch, but they didn't make up for the lack of other flavors in the sandwich. Cubed, home fries style potatoes were served on the side. Again, not much flavor on these either. Salt and mayonnaise improved both the sandwich and potatoes.

While I wasn't a huge fan of my dish here, the person I ate here with ordered the Poutine à la Joue de Boeuf. Fistons' poutine topped with beef cheeks was awesome. It used sweet potato fries rather than normal potatoes. The beef cheeks were melt in your mouth tender and were bursting with flavor.


Restaurant Mechoui Marrakech Cusine Marocaine (Downtown Quebec City)

This Moroccan restaurant was located in Downtown Quebec. According to Wikipedia's article on shish-taouk, the dish is more of a Lebanese origin, but this Moroccan restaurant served it as well.

Rather than just trying the shish-taouk, I ordered the combo dinner. This was a sampling of shish-taouk, kefta, merguez, and gyro. The meats were served over rice with sides of taboule, garlic sauce, and salad.

The shish-taouk tasted like very flavorful chicken, much better than my previous shish-taouk experience. The kefta was a little bland, basically tasting like ground beef. The merguez was new to me. I had never had a sausage from a middle eastern restaurant in the past. The rice and taboule were nice and flavorful, and the garlic sauce was wonderful. The pickled turnips on the salad were also a nice touch.

The shish-taouk was good, but the combination of everything else made this one of my favorite meals of my trip.

Quebec City Poutine (Casse-croute Pierrot, Pub du Parvis, Pizzeria Stratos, and Chez AshTon)

I spent a week in Quebec City. Since this was Canada, I had to indulge in one of the foods that Canada is known for that rivals maple syrup and Kraft macaroni. I sampled far too much poutine during my week in Quebec. I was apprehensive at first. The combination of French fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds didn't exactly sound super appetizing. Once I started tasting the various poutines around the city, I suddenly saw while almost all but one restaurant I visited didn't have poutine on the menu. It's because the dish is delicious!

Casse-croute Pierrot (Limoilou)

My first poutine tasting happened at a 24 hour restaurant in Quebec City's Limoilou neighborhood. They were called Casse-Croute Pierrot and specialized in poutine, pizza, sandwiches, and other foods. It was basically a 24 hour diner, but I kept on hearing it referred to as "The Poutine Place" during the duration of the nearby event that I was in the city for. I decided to try the Poutine Special Pierrot. It was topped with pepperoni, mushrooms, green bell peppers, and onions in addition to the mandatory gravy and cheese curds. I had ordered the smaller 7" plate of poutine, and it ended up being a humongous mound of deliciousness. I couldn't see a single person eating a 9" plate from this restaurant. The pepperoni on here was interesting. I'm wondering if pepperoni in French actually translates to another type of sausage. This pepperoni was less spicy, was more pick than red, and seemed to resemble a type of salami as opposed to the typical pepperoni that Americans are used to. If I knew that champignons translated to mushrooms, I might have requested that they hold them, but my lack of French made me eat foods hat were slightly out of my comfort zone and it was delicious!

Pub du Parvis (Downtown)

Another poutine experience happened at Pub du Parvis in Downtown Quebec. I tried their Octoberfest Poutine. Not being able to fully translate the menu, I was able to figure out this poutine's toppings included caramelized onions, beer somewhere in the dish (gravy maybe?), and the meat of the day. Our waitress didn't know the English word for the meat and the French word meant nothing to me. Regardless, I ordered this anyway wondering what the mystery meat might be. It turned out to be some sort of blood sausage and was delicious. I was told by someone visiting from Wisconsin that you can tell a good quality cheese curd based on whether or not it squeaks when you bite into it. The curds on this poutine did indeed squeak (Casse-Croute Pierrot's did not). I'd vote the poutine from Pub du Parvis my favorite poutine that I tried in the city.

Now this isn't poutine, but I did end up at Pub du Parvis a second time during my stay (was a block away from my hotel) and tried one of their pizzas. Since where on the subject of Pub du Parvis, I'm going to sneak their Greckoroman Pizza into this post about poutine. The pizza had a really thin, almost cracker-like crust. The only problem with this crust was that the pizza was a little hard to cut up (didn't come sliced). It was topped with feta, onions, kalamata olives, tomato, arugula, and yogurt. I've never seen yogurt on a pizza before, but it combined nicely with the feta. I preferred the poutine to the pizza, but Pub du Parvis still served a perfectly respectable pizza.

Pizzeria Stratos (Limoilou)

I was attending an event in Quebec City and they bought everyone poutine from Pizzeria Stratos one afternoon. Pizzeria Stratos claims to be Le Roi de la Poutine, or the King of Poutine. Turned out that the Le Roi was my least favorite poutine from my trip. This poutine was essentially cheese fries with gravy. That said, the gravy was really tasty. It had a very nice peppery flavor, but everything else would have not made me see the appeal of poutine if this was my first experience with the food. I don't know if the cheese curds had melted while being delivered, but Stratos' poutine looked more like a heart attack in an aluminum tin as opposed to something gourmet and delicious.

Chez AshTon (Old City)

My last real poutine experience in Quebec was at a fast food restaurant called Chez AshTon. This was a chain (I saw another in the nearby town of Levis). From reading the menu, this looked like a French Canadian version of an Arbys, only better. They seemed to specialize in roast beef sandwiches and burgers, but of course had a selection of poutine to choose from. Quality wise, Chez AshTon seemed slightly better than American fast food chains with signs advertising the use of local beef from Quebec free from antibiotics and hormones. I was going to just try one of the poutines here, but then I saw the sign for Assiette Rosbif Ave Poutine. A roast beef sandwich with poutine seemed to be getting the best of both at Chez AshTon. I didn't have high expectations from a fast food chain, but I enjoyed this meal. The roast beef sandwich, fries, and cheese curds were placed on a plate alongside lettuce, tomato, and peas. Everything on the plate was then smothered in a pool of gravy. The poutine itself didn't have fancy toppings, but the cheese curds did squeak. The roast beef definitely seemed better than it's Arby's equivalent. It seemed more like meat rather than something highly processed. The gravy made it better, with the tasty sauce soaking into the bun. The bun was the weak spot of the meal. Almost all the bread I had in Quebec City was amazing, but this was a standard hamburger bun. The peas were unexpected but were a nice touch (again, made even better soaked in gravy). I'm glad I was pleased with fast food poutine!

Potato Chips

While talking about poutine, we can't forget the poutine flavored Ruffles sold in all the stores in Quebec. They were very salty, but did somewhat have a gravy flavor. Definitely not the same as actual poutine, but a local flavor nonetheless. I also tried a Canadian orange soda that I had never heard of the brand...