A couple of
weeks back I read a review by the Two Fat Guys. They paid a visit to M.I.C. in
Dieppe and one Fat Guy (Chad C.) critiqued the Smoked Meat Poutine. I can’t say
I agree wholeheartedly with his final mark, even though I do agree with much of
his analysis.
To quote
Chad directly, “The problem I had was, despite the
fact the smoked meat was fantastic on its own and the poutine was great by
itself, I am not sure this is a dish that works for me” and “even though
there are two great components to this dish, I did not like the two options put
together.”
He gave his experience
a 7/10 and that included the very excellent cheese sticks, which I have also
had at M.I.C. and enjoyed immensely. Given his similar enjoyment of the cheese
sticks and his disappointment with the Smoked Meat Poutine, I can only guess
that the main course fared far below 7/10.
About six
months ago, I had the Smoked Meat Poutine at M.I.C. as well. I even took a
picture of it. Did it do as well as their traditional poutine? No. But I don’t
believe it did as poorly as Chad would suggest. That’s where Chad and I
disagree. For some reason he could not separate smoked meat from smoked meat
sandwich and even wrote about having the urge to add mustard to it.
But, we do
agree on some things. You see, when I ran the smoked meat poutine through my own
evaluation process, it did just as well as the traditional version in terms of
fries, gravy, curds, and even value-for-money. But, it didn’t do well on
expectations. Indeed, I scored the traditional poutine at 83%, but the smoked
version only gets a 75%.
Why the
difference in expectations?
When I saw
the menu, I had the same thoughts as Chad, who wrote “For my main course, I saw
an item on the menu that sounded too good to be true. A combination I had never
even fantasized about before - Smoked Meat Poutine.”
Expectations
are simply far too high. How could anyone see poutine and smoked meat together
and not get … well … umm … excited. Well, Poutine Guy couldn’t help himself
either. Just look at the picture. It is mouth-watering to say the least. Despite not being as good as their traditional version, it's still worth it if you want to try something new.
And speaking of not being able to help myself, my next blog will include a critique of an Edmonton poutinerie – La Poutine. As my fans may recall, expectations are high for any restaurant that includes the word poutine in its name. I look forward to letting you know how it went.
Until then, may your curds stay squeaky.
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