But are they the King of Pouters?
With my last review, I jumped at the chance to try a different kind of pouter, while it was delicious it was hard to compare against a regular poutine so I’m happy to get back to the basics of cheese curds, gravy and fries. King of Fries at one time was the un-contested ‘King of Fries’ in what we used to call the ‘Tri-Town’ area. However with handful of different owners over the past few years have made the items inconsistent and sub-par knocking it down low on my list of pouter eateries. I suppose my expectations were some what low going into this review, however I must of hit them up on a good day, since the quality of pouter rang through.
Well when rating a pouter there are 5 categories to consider:
1) Fries
2) Cheese
3) Gravy
4) Extras
5) Presentation
Each of these are rated as a pass or fail toward its final grade:
1) Fries: Possibly fresh cut, but if they were, they were properly blanched, nice and soft but far from soggy. They did lack a uniform crispness to them which I always like but not a detractor in this case. I’ll go ahead and say the fries were ‘average’ but still give them a full point for being overall enjoyable.
Pass.
2) Cheese: LOOK AT IT! It’s cheesy… but I did ask for extra cheese so I expected it to be AT-LEAST this cheesy. I took this pouter to go so the cheese had time to melt and spread itself around on my drive home and when I finally opened it, I enjoyed the sight left to behold. Almost like little rivers of white swimming around with the gravy. The taste was excellent too, with a slight hint of salt to them with more than enough to enjoy some on every bite. NOM NOM NOM NOM… I like cheese and this cheese was a pass!
Pass.
3) Gravy: At first I thought this gravy would be ‘average’ but as I dug into it I noticed that it really wasn’t very runny at all, in fact I found it to be pretty clumpy. Not so clumpy that I could of created a mini gravy snowman out of it but clumpy enough that it had weight to it and very limited viscosity. The flavour was kind of bland considering the consistency of the sauce, I would have expected a little more punch from it. When it came down to it I was unsatisfied with this pouter’s gravy, I don’t like it runny but I found it un-necessarily stagnant, sticking to everything it touched and not dripping.
Fail.
4) Extras: As mentioned before, I ordered extra cheese, it did cost a bit more but it was the only extra on the menu. I wish they would have had the option for some grilled chicken or some bacon but cheese is what they advertised, so it’s what I went with. The quantity was good and I have had pouters here without extra cheese before so I can attest to the amount of cheese being more plentiful that it would normally be. Plus, since I already said I liked the cheese it would be hard for me to give this extra a fail.
Pass.
5) Presentation: WTF! Styrofoam! Other than that it’s a pass, just look at the river of cheese and gravy but I can’t get passed anyone who sells me something in a throw away container that won’t bio-degrade before I will. FAIL!
Fail.
Well it was a good experience over all, I had a craving, I bought this poutine and the craving was demolished. In fact a week and a day later as I write this review I don’t think I’ve had a pouter craving since. King of Fries, you may not be the king of poutine, but you still have a contender for one of the better local pouters.
King Of Fries – 3 outta 5!
