food

Several weeks ago, three friends and I had the opportunity to visit the Cabane a Sucre Au Pied de Cochon. To read the comments on Internet forums you'd think it more likely to come across a spotted unicorn in your dining room than to score reservations to the Cabane. In reality, though, all you need to do is call well in advance. And by well in advance, we're talking about 6 months. So, if you want a table for next year, you'd better be getting your dialing finger ready sometime in the next few months.

And – unlike most things that are hyped up to be something they're not – in this case, it's well worth the wait.

The planets were so well aligned, in fact, that our reservation coincided exactly with my buddy Vahe's birthday, making for an easy, inexpensive and delicious birthday gift. We got into my lemon of a car, and drove the 30 minutes northwest of Laval, past the suburbia of St-Eustache, to the idyllic rural setting of St-Benoit-de-Mirabel. Unlike most “traditional” Cabanes, this one was much more lounge-like, smaller, intimate, and clean – make no mistake; this is a restaurant much more than it is a typical Cabane A Sucre. That doesn't bother me, but for the non-Quebeckers who come from out of town to get a “taste of Quebec”, it needs to be said that this is far from the traditional Cabane A Sucre experience.

Once inside, the hostess looked up our reservation and promptly assigned us to a table; actually, a double-table shared with a group of friendly seniors. The waitress came to our table and explained that there would be three courses, each with several plates of food to share between us. We also had a limitless supply of maple syrup and some of the best crepes I've ever had. We ordered beer – not a wimpy pint, but something larger that a pint, something... precious – and waited not-so-patiently for our food to arrive.

Lo and behold, arrive it did.

Pretty old news, but I was tipped off a couple of weeks ago that Kentucky Fried Chicken - KFC, or "PFK" as they are known here in Le Québec - was market testing out a new 'sandwich' that does away with the bread buns, replacing them with two pieces of fried chicken. I'm trying to think of something witty to say here, but the video promo speaks for itself:

I tend to mostly stay away from American Fast Food - especially anything that could potentially hurt my chances of gittin' with Pam Anderson - but this extreme concoction is too, uhhh, extreme to pass up. If they release it here, I'm definitely going to have to try it.

Image courtesy of http://foodgeekery.com

As a foodie, the fact that it's a sandwich held together with chicken and not bread is pretty cool, although I suppose that basically just makes it a large chicken strip with the sauce. Of course, the fact that it's a KFC / mass marketing product generally means that most of all the conversation about it will be on blogs and forums complaining about how gross it looks. If it were the product of some independent, forward-thinking chicken joint in Seattle, SF or New York you'd have hipsters posting about it on Flickr and Twitter praising it for its originality.

At any rate, you have to hand it to KFC for one thing - they just put back in question everything it means to be a sandwich:

Today, I eased my way back into my regular diet after spending 3 weeks in the U.S. eating, well, well... Ethiopian in Washington DC (obviously), and Mexifornian in SF. Not to mention all the munchies you get when, you know, you're in California. ;)

Dude, did you know that Mike and Ikes cost, like less than a buck a box over there? They're like $3+ here! They are the food of the Gods, who must be benevolent, all-knowing, gentle Gods if they share their Mike and Ike - Bursting with Fruit Juice Flavor® - with us.

There were other memorable moments, like when I had a craving for In-N-Out Burger, Carl's Jr and Jack-In-The-Box - all at the same time, which was fortunate since they are all on the same street corner down from my cousin's house. In between that and my family's incomparable Iraqi food, I got a little sluggish.