June 10, 2002
Frites Alors!

This weekend in montreal visiting with Emily and Steph I had the good fortune of eating at Frites Alors. It's a great place and actually one of the first places I said "I could open a place like this" about (the others being Southern Accent in Toronto, Jane Bond in Waterloo and Juice for Life also in TO). It's a lunch/casual supper place specializing in fries (obviously) and sandwiches. Two points about this place:

1. Great fries, there's no excuse for shitty fries, we made great ones at Oyster Boy by cutting them fresh each day and blanching them in a cool fryer (200 degrees I think) and then crisping them up in a hot one (400) at service. Toss with salt and serve right away! We used Yukon Golds I think but I've heard of a fry place that had a Potato of the Day written on a chalkboard, that's kinda fun but I'm not sure how many people would be able to tell the difference. I'd say choose a good potato and stick with it.
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2. Dips! They have about 10 different dips you can order with your fries (50 cents extra) most of which are mayo-based. This is SUCH as easy way to differentiate yourself from the comptetion while making ginormous profits, plus they're damn tasty. Speaking of dips we're running this awsome grilled cheese sandwich at work now, it's smoked mozarella and arugula on sourdough with a roasted red pepper and garlic dip. Totally tasty. There's nothing better than dips!


My brother called me up today and told me a restaurant idea that came to him as he awoke from the blissful sleep of the unemployed this morning. The idea is a competition restaurant! Like iron chef only with customers! You could have a large dining area with an open-kitchen at each end so that the two chefs could peer at each other across floor. Each chef would serve a table d'hote and you could order either from the challenger menu or the champion menu. Chefs from various restaurant around town (and beyond perhaps) would come in for one night engagements to test their mettle agains the house-cooks. The winner of each night would be chosen by the patrons who would vote after eating. The loser would then be ushered out into the middle of the restaurant and into a specially made glass dishpit where he would spend the remainder of the night washing up. ha!

Posted by JP at June 10, 2002 04:37 PM
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