Zaitoun has the best poutine in Canada…read more
For that matter, it's probably the best casse-croûte-style shop I've seen outside of Québec.
Let's break this down.
Poutine fries must be crisp right-angles with tips that remind you that they were once potatoes, fluffy, pillowy interiors shielded from the besieging sauce-brun. The sauce should be profound umami and just viscous enough to adhere to a fry trawled along the plate. The cheese should gift salt and squeak. This indulgent mess inherently seems to shrug off adjectives like exquisite, precise, conscientious, but the poutine at Zaitoun is all of this.
Now, if you're like me, you might get half-way to the poutine counter and think something to the effect of, "poutine is great, but I wish that this place had a good kebab, beef kofti perhaps. Maybe -- oh, but this would never happen! -- maybe, just, a skewer of tangy, smoky tandoori chicken." Zaitoun has such people, people like me, covered, scarlet tenders cushioned by scented, sumac-sprinkled basmati rice, garlicky salad slicing the rich flavours. Go with friends. Order the menu. Share it.
I have not mentioned yet that this restaurant is 100% Halal. I am not of a belief system that requires my food to be Halal, but I like to know that deliberate actions respecting animal welfare, food safety, and intentionality have permeated the supply chain, and the feeling of knowing that isn't a feeling you often get when you're eating at a poutinerie. At Zaitoun, however, when you order the loaded chicken poutine, you know something about that chicken, that you are the final step of an elevated human experience.
This is no ordinary casse-croûte.
It should be. It exists in a mediocre grey part of Scarborough, on the far side of an arachnoid parking lot that features a McDonald's and a Tim Hortons, a handful of other unassuming restaurants, and a half-derelict concrete edifice that makes you feel like you might have come to the wrong place. You might have come for the "Loaded Poutine" that appears as a place in Safari maps but not in real life. It is unimpressive even as you approach. It could be an unbranded Mary Brown's, until you see the menu.
And then you see the counter-top marquee that could be selling you a special, whose letters spell out Free Palestine.
And you see the tip jar whose proceeds support the local mosque.
And you notice that every soft drink is sourced from a small producer; and the cola, for example, tells you right on the can that 10% of the proceeds from the sale of that can are destined for charitable work.
And then you look closely at the geometric patterns on the wall and on the stainless steel fume hood, and you see how thoroughly the owners have transfigured this unassuming snack shop into a sacred space.
And you clear your cross-hatched plastic tray to the bussing station and step back into the diesel-infused asphalt and concrete having indulged in a decadent harmony and, incongruently, feeling as though you just participated in something profound and deeply human.
Zaitoun. You should go there.
