Little Britain in Montreal*

(*Apologies, but sadly there is no Matt Lucas or David Williams here.)

The next time your smuggled deep-fried fish** gets confiscated at airport customs from your luggage on your way home from the UK because you couldn't resist sharing the lovely flakes of fish with your friends and family here back home, great news! You can take a deliciously deep-fried lump of fish and crispy chips home from right here, in Old Montreal!


[Haddock in maple syrup batter to the left; cod in Burgundy Lion batter to the right. Oh yes.]

Tucked away at the edge of Old Montreal, in the former McGill Hog Dog diner spot, Brit & Chips is Montreal's answer to the staple UK take-away food, complete with artery-clogging tartar sauce and the lemon wedge designed to fit entirely in your mouth.

[Good-looking take-away boxes and the contents about to get eaten! (cw from the top: haddock, cod and salmon).]

Run, don't walk, down to this chippy if you're in the hood. Oh and maybe shell out a measly $11 bucks for some fish and chips while you're there!

Brit & Chips
433 Rue Mcgill
www.britandchips.com

** Thanks to the peeps at the Darkside HK, I have been enlightened to this "delicacy" of a fried fish practice in some part of China that will cause me to have nightmares for years to come. As if dreaming about talking sandwiches wasn't already disturbing enough!

poutine central: ashton

one of the best fast food chains in the province of quebec does not have any presence in montreal.

its name: chez ashton.
its specialty: fantastic poutine.

[chez ashton in lower town, québec city]

(for those not in the know, poutine is a popular french-canadian dish consisting of french fries with cheese curds and all doused in delicious gravy.)


[poutine piquante régulière = best $7.95 you'll ever spend.]

ashton uses local potatoes from île-d'orléans for their golden frites, and fresh curd cheese (fromage en grains)... the kicker is the homemade sauce. they also have a few poutine varieties: regular (with or without sausages); spicy; dulton (with ground beef), with or without sausages; and galvaude (with cubed chicken and peas), with or without cheese.

so if i were to rate ashton on their poutine, it would probably break down to something like this:

fries: 4.5
cheese: 5
sauce: 5
presentation: 4.5

total: 19 on 20

next poutine stop: louis, in sherbrooke...

note to mr. ashton: m. ashton -- je vous conseille fortement d'ouvrir une succursale à montréal. on attend toujours après une bonne poutine ici...