Oh Canadians! We love you.
I rarely, as far as I know, make peoples’ day. I try to make people giggle, and I do things for people that will help them in the long term for their futures, but it is rare that I make someone’s day today as it were.
I made somebody’s day though quite recently in relation to Canadian food, homesickness and the general silliness that goes along with 2020.
Poutine. It is Canadian, though only recently in the last 10-15 years did it make its way west in Canada (probably on foot, because the place is so bloody big), and the world of course. A non-connoisseur would tell you it is just cheesy fries with gravy, but even the most polite of the Great White North would take umbrage at that. It is home, it is fattening and it is great, eh? And for my student/ dogs body Johnny, me knowing it exists is the end of a seven year fruitless search for poutine in Taiwan.
Johnny is Taiwanese, but spent his teenage years in Canada, and regularly speaks about how at odds he is with the Taiwanese education system. In the lift one night with another student, Ms. M, we were chatting about my blog and “how do you find this stuff?” When I remembered I hadn’t yet gone for poutine for this thing and Johnny may be interested.
“Did you know you can get poutine here?”
“Wait, really?
“Yes”
It looked like tears were forming in Johnny’s eyes.
“With like the cheese curds on top and everything?”
“Yep, with the cheese curds and everything.”
“Duuuude, you don’t know how long I’ve looked. Wait, is it made by Canadians, or Taiwanese who went there once?
“Real life, polite, bearded, sleeve length tattooed (probably), white boy Canadians who have been here years”
I could see that he had been burned before with the promise of authentic stuff from another place, and had wound up tolerating a second rate local version of it. This happens so often to my international brethren. But on hearing this, it was like he had had an epiphany.
“I’m going to have to go there. I can’t wait”
So, as I wanted to check it off my list, and Johnny needed his fix, I invited him along. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to make it this time as the end of semester is looming and he has a part time job when they are open. Boo! But at least I made him smile.
Anyway, The Poutinerie& Snack Shack came out of the ashes of the earlier Whalens which used to be a Diner type place in the center of town. I’m not sure of the whys and whatnots, because I’m a family man out of the loop but they closed down and they opened this place a good few years ago now in Gongguan down by the river and the Museum of Drinking Water (Yep, once again Taiwan prevails with it’s amazing museums). The museum is a place I’d been saving for when I had run out of things to do, which happened two weeks ago, and we took the bairn for a walk in the hills behind it. Other than that, it is a popular spot for wedding photos because of the old time architecture.
It is only open on weekends in the evening and is an outdoor food truck type experience. I was there on Sunday afternoon, the weather was brighter than it has been recently and a good day for comfort food, but there were only two other couples eating at the shack itself. The area is popular for people riding bikes so it was busy behind us.
I looked at the menu and decided to just go for the classic poutine for 100NT and the meal deal with soft drink for an extra 40NT. It was one of the cheapest meals I’ve had doing this, and probably the most filling. Yep, it was as good as it was supposed to be, cheesy, too much gravy and the need to waddle home afterwards. I’d say it is perfect for the time of year and glad I waited til December to eat it.
The only other thing to report really other than the service being nice was a fellow customer asking me
“Hey dude, are you Canadian?”
“No, why what’s up?”
“Oh, right on”.
Canadian, to the very end.
To be any more Canadian, that 30 minutes at the snack shack it would have needed to be playing The Tragically Hip which is undoubtedly on their playlist.
Go there if you are about on the weekend, it is cheap, good atmosphere, and yeah… 47 done 🙂
Menu:
Address: Siyuan St, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, 100
Best way to get there: Gongguan MRT, and then past the Museum of Drinking Water down by the river.
52 Cuisines? 