After the long awaited opening, finally the second coming of the (in)famous Canadian poutine has happened. Or not!!!
But what exactly is Poutine?
It's a Quebecois (french Canadian dish) recently also popular across the rest of Canada.
Ingredients: French fries (pommes), cheese curds topped with a light brown (meat) gravy and sometimes a pickle on the side.
Simple enough, right?
After moving to Germany from Canada last year, I had heard of one other joint in Berlin, who desperately tried to "imitate" this dish but unfortunately repeatedly failed at creating it for obvious reasons which I will explain.
Frittenwerk uses only mozzarella cheese (and not a good quality either) for what it calls curds. I've seen many, even in Canada try this on potatoes, it's as you say in Germany, a Katastrophe!
Regular cheese on potatoes just melts away, the grand idea of poutine is to obtain the famous "squeak" from the cheese curds whilst chewing. And that ain't happening here!
On my first visit to Frittenwerk, I ordered, the "Classic Quebec Poutine" (as I often do at a new pizzeria, the classic or basic dish, just cheese and tomatoes, a Margherita, it's my base for judging the rest of the pizzas).
From Frittenwerk's menu:
"A big portion of fries with a vegetarian spicy gravy topped with melting mozzarella cheese curds".
Let my taste buds rewrite this:
A generous portion of well cooked thick-cut french fries(nice), with tiny (a lame excuse for) mozzarella cheese pieces topped with some extremely salty unidentifiable cream!!!
Price? €5,50! Zu teuer.
I know I'm being harsh but if Frittenwerk claims to have gotten its experience from Canada, it's like saying, Pizza Hut got its experience from Naples!
I can somehow forgive Frittenwerk for its lack of curds use, apparently cheese curds are impossible to find outside north America. Probably the huge cheese variety in Europe prevents such tiny use of a cheese mid-product.
For those, including Frittenwerk, who wish to pursue the meaning of REAL CHEESE CURDS, read below an extract from Wikipedia...
(Source Wikipedia):
""After the milk has been pasteurized, the result is a mixture of whey and curd. This mixture is then cooked and pressed to release the whey from the curd, creating the final product of "cheese curd".
Fresh curds squeak against the teeth when bitten into. This "squeak" has been described by The New York Times as sounding like "balloons trying to neck". The curds have a mild flavour and are sometimes somewhat salty.""
Sorry Frittenwerk, not yet...
If Martin Picard finds out about this, he'll be upset! read more