We love poutine. In fact, we love it so much that we had a poutine bar at our wedding! We first learned about Calgary's love affair with poutine in 2013 when we took part in the Calgary Poutine Crawl (#bringbackthepoutinecrawl !!!). It involved getting on a party bus with other poutine lovers and going around to different Calgary restaurants and sampling their best squeaky creations. Since then, this event has evolved into Calgary Poutine Week. It's a 9 day french fry, cheese, and gravy extravaganza where restaurants all over the city create their unique takes on this classic Canadian dish. To top it all off, proceeds from these poutine sales go to Mealshare. It's a delicious event, and calories don't count when it's for charity (right?!). There are over 70 incredible restaurants across Calgary serving up any kind of poutine you can dream of. Check it out until Saturday April 29th!
This year, we were thrilled to be invited to the kick-off to Poutine Week, the Gravy Bowl. This year's event pitted eight teams against each other for poutine domination (we take our poutine very seriously!). Each team consisted of a restaurant chef, a microbrewery, and a Calgary Stampeder. The rules stated that the Stampeder had to cook, and the dish must have micro-brewed beer in the ingredients. Awesome teamwork from all eight teams, a whole lot of smack talking and great photos of solidarity (like the one below with Tyler Ballance from Bridges on First and Stamps Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell).
In addition to sampling 8 amazing types of poutine we got to sample beers from 8 amazing breweries.
There were four celebrity judges, and dozens of us along for the ride. Just like us internet foodies, even the judges were all over capturing these amazing dishes!
We'll be giving you some of our highlights from the event - but If you'd like a detailed breakdown of all eight teams participating, check out the Gravy Bowl website. All eight poutines at the Gravy Bowl are available at their restaurants all week. So seriously, check out the website!
The fan favourite (according to us and the four other people we were eavesdropping on), was the Poutine for your Seoul by Roy Oh from Anju Restaurant, Boiling Oar Brewery, and Stamps Offensive Lineman Quinn Smith. Made with Korean badassery, this poutine was comprised of Korean smoked meat, kennebec fries, truffle gravy and cheese curds. If you've read our other post on Anju, you'll know we looooooove it. Shameful side note: both of us were absolutely star struck by Roy Oh and may have (actually, most likely did) embarrass ourselves. The poutine was delicious, the truffle oil was a winner and the smoked meat exceeded our very high expectations. Even though we schlepped on our poutine with a serving spoon, the photograph of our plate above is still making our mouth water.
Another highlight for us was the collaboration between Market, Last Best Brewery and Running Back Rob Cote. This poutine was made with Crispy Golden Fries, MARKET Smoked Bocconcini, Duck Confit, and Last Best Black Lager Gravy. Look at that beauty above (with the wrong sign)! The gravy was deeply flavourful and the duck confit was so tender. We loved Market when we visited the first time, and this too is a winner in our books.
If you read our About Us page, you know V loves her eggs. We couldn't resist the creation by Beltliner, Half Hitch Brewery and Coach DeVone Claybrooks. Featuring two kinds of beer, this poutine has Fire & Fury (Red Ale) blanched fries topped with Quebec cheese curds, Shotgun Wedding (Brown Ale) braised Alberta beef brisket, sunny fried egg and spicy onion crisps. P was a huge fan of the brisket (shocker... not), and V loved the crispy onions. And the runny yolk made it all better, just like runny yolks always do! This poutine makes us want to check out the Beltliner ASAP!
Our award (for what it's worth) for Most Creative Poutine goes to the West Coast Poutine by NKOTB (new kid on the block, of course) Bridges on First, Brewsters and Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell. This poutine forfeited french fries and instead had football shaped tater tots, topped with gravy, curds, fresh West Coast wild cod, clams and mussels. Creative, right?! This was our first time trying a sea food poutine and to be honest, we weren't sure what to expect but the dish came together beautifully!
And finally, to get to what you've all been waiting for. The winner of Gravy Bowl is... *drumroll please*... Brasserie and Kensington Wine Bar, Dandy Brewing Company, and Running Back Charlie Power. Their winning dish was Poutine with Oyster stout gravy, fried oysters, and Alberta cheese curds. Sadly we didn't get to try any of this dish. There was none left by the time we made it to the front of the line. This only goes to show how much people wanted to pile it on their plates. We don't blame them - it was the winner after all. We'll just have to make our way to Kensington this week to get a full plate to ourselves (Muahahahah!).
Congratulations, Champs!
All in all, we can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday. Since we've started this blog, this is the first event we've been invited for (OMG, so exciting!) - and it's very fitting that it would be poutine related. Thanks Calgary Poutine Week for the invite, and thanks for hosting, Briggs Kitchen + Bar! We've got our stretchy pants on all week for your delicious event!