You can eat poutine any time of year, but this Quebecoise treat tastes best when it’s really, really cold outside. I’m talking Montreal in January cold, the kind of frigidness that invades unusual places like your eyeballs and your teeth. Now that I don’t drive a car anymore, I don’t mind winter. I enjoy having an excuse to stay home, drinking dark beer and swaddling myself in layers of wool–the better to hide the gut I’m packing from savoring my favorite foods. Poutine is actually very simple–it’s just french fries and cheese curds, melted into savory gobs under a layer of steaming gravy. But it is somewhat tricky to execute. Proper curds are not easy to find, the fries should be fresh, the gravy ratio MUST be perfect, and a snowstorm backdrop doesn’t hurt either. Unlike your typical diner cheese fries, which fill you with self-loathing and regret, poutine, when it’s done right, warms your cockles, which I believe are located somewhere somewhere between your gullet and your spleen.

Poutine is pretty rare in the States but there are a few places in New York City that serve it. On Saturday, I checked out TPoutine on Ludlow Street, a relatively-new burgers-and-fries shop advantageously located in the booze-soaked Lower East Side. A classic poutine ran a steep $7.25, and came served in an appealing iron skillet, the curds just beginning to melt in their gravy bath. The cheese curds tasted authentic, and were generously-sized, although this possibly prevented them from completely melting. The fries, to their credit, maintained a fair amount of crispness, but the gravy didn’t taste much more than hot. A friend’s plate arrived with entirely too much gravy, which soon made the fries soggy, so it may be to your advantage to tell them to go light. All-in-all, this did a fair job satiating my poutine craving, but I’m told it’s not as tasty as the stuff you’d find in Montreal. TPoutine is open til 5am on weekends, so I could foresee a making late-night pit stop, but I’d probably keep looking for the really good stuff–my next destinations will likely be Mile End or Sheep Station in Brooklyn. There’s also decent and cheaper version available at Pommes Frites in the East Village.

TPoutine
168 Ludlow St between Stanton St & Houston St.
Tue-Wed 12pm-2am, Thu-Sat 12pm-5am, Sun 12pm-2am