When I found out uOttawa dedicated an entire week to Canada’s favourite fast food there was just about tears of joy filling my eyes. After a week of satiating my poutine cravings, here are some things that caught my eye about this year’s festival.
1. The ethnic poutine is a good thing. I was happily surprised to see the SFUO take the time to find poutine trucks/companies that weren’t just serving classics (not that I’m not a fan of crisp fries cuddling delicious cheese curds cascaded with mouth watering gravy). Campus had a variety of tasty flavours like pad Thai poutine (one of the crowd favourites according to the Poutine Fest Facebook page), shawarma poutine and even lobster poutine!
2. Cold weather. What is it with uOttawa and making us stand in line in freezing cold weather for food? Beaver tails: fine, we get it, but it would be nice to enjoy a poutine on those benches they set up. Instead we were all hiding in FSS, forks shovelling fries covered in deliciousness into out faces.
3. Gluten free, lactose free and vegetarian options were available to students with dietary restrictions. Not only do we like to include everyone here on the uOttawa campus, but we also like to get the carnivores to try something outside their comfort zone.
4. Sample sizes. What a brilliant idea! You could try all the options on campus for a discounted price and a smaller serving of food. I really hope to see this again next year.
5. Where’s Smokes? For some reason, I just expected Smokes Poutinerie to be present and yet they weren’t. I’d love to see them next year, as we all know how delicious our Dalhousie residents are (especially the fajitas poutine)!
6. Who doesn’t love the chance to win prizes? A $250 gift card to Rideau was offered up to students who took the time to vote for their favourite poutine
7. My favourite poutine had to be the classic from the Golden Fries Lobster truck. Though I didn’t get a chance to try their lobster poutine, just the fact that they were using St. Albert’s cheese curds was enough to sell me. That and their P.E.I. potatoes fried perfectly (they must have been changing the oil often-which was a mistake many other trucks made) and thick gravy that wasn’t too overpowering, but just right.
With Poutine Fest coming to a close there’s really only one thing left on our mind: this is happening again, right? According to the Poutine Fest Facebook page it’s a pretty promising idea that the SFUO is planning on it.