Poutine at Fromagerie Lemaire: Restaurant Review

A road trip to Quebec City this week took me and my husband through the Drummondville area, the dairy region of Quebec famous for being the birthplace of poutine. Our friend, a truck driver by trade, had mapped out the route for us all, including a stop for supper on the way home. "This place has the best poutine," she said to me. "They have every kind you could want." When I looked at the name of the restaurant I realized it was one of the places that had come up when I wrote about poutine earlier this spring. I was definitely eager to try the offerings of the Fromagerie Lemaire.

A restaurant with history
The designation "fromagerie" means the restaurant is not just a diner, but also a maker of cheese. The Lemaire family has been involved with the business for decades, since a coop of dairy farmers who hired Marcel Lemaire to make cheese for them in 1936. Lemaire later bought the cheese making facility from the coop, and in 1956 the "cheese bar" was opened.

The Fromagerie Lemaire where we ate is one of several facilities the Lemaire family has operated over the years. It was built in 2006, and is decorated with a variety of farm implements large and small. The dining area features tabletops bearing the distinctive black and white Holstein cow pattern, a reminder of the connection between the food we eat and the local farming community.

Lemaire poutine menu
As a maker of Quebec cheese curds, the Fromagerie Lemaire specializes in poutine. Varieties offered are plain, Italian, chicken, hamburger, roast beef, chicken and sausage. Side dishes to the poutine include foods like smoked meat sandwiches and hamburgers, that most of us would think of as the main dish in a fast food meal. The restaurant also houses a dairy bar where customers can buy ice cream products, and a cheese counter that offers a variety of cheeses, including the fresh cheese curds that are used to make the poutine.

Portion sizes and prices
Poutine is purchased at the counter for both eat-in and take-out dining. Four sizes are available, from truly small up to a large that my husband described as being two days' worth of food. At only $13.50 Canadian, the large is the most economical. It could probably replace about three large portions from the average Montreal fast food restaurant, and depending on the kind of poutine ordered it is only a few dollars more expensive than one of those servings elsewhere. The more modest "regular" size was $6.95, and is closer to the large in many Montreal area restaurants.

Taste testing
I must admit to being disappointed with the menu selection, having expected a much larger number of offerings from the way my friend talked about the restaurant. The smoked meat, chicken, Italian and plain poutine varieties can be had in almost any fast food place in the province of Quebec. The sausage poutine was most disappointing of all, as it turned out to be a regular poutine with pieces of hot dogs mixed in. It was popular with my younger kids, though. We brought them home a sausage poutine and they liked it at least as much as they like Kraft Dinner and hot dogs.

The most remarkable thing about the Lemaire poutine was that the cheese didn't melt. Not when served in the restaurant, and just barely when we tried warming up the leftovers at home. There are two reasons for this: first of all, the chunks of cheese in the poutine are absolutely enormous; secondly, there is not enough sauce put in the poutine and it isn't nearly hot enough when served. We brought a poutine home for a friend who was babysitting, and he found in it a chunk of cheese the size of a child's fist. Even with enough sauce and heat, it would be a lot to expect a piece of cheese this big to melt the way it should for poutine.

The chicken poutine I ordered had a handful of tiny, pretty much tasteless chicken cubes thrown on top, rather than the big chunks of roasted chicken I am used to getting all the way through a chicken poutine in Montreal. The sauce was not a standard poutine sauce, but tasted more like something I would use to make a hot chicken sandwich. I found the combination less than appealing. My friend quite enjoyed her hamburger poutine, but I thought the sauce tasted a little burned. Both my husband and my daughter ordered the smoked meat poutine, which had generous amounts of Montreal-style smoked meat. Despite the problems with the cheese and the sauce, and fries that were a little on the dry side, this was the winner of the evening.

The cheese used in our poutine was made at the St-Cyrille location of the Fromagerie, where customers can watch the process through a window. While I found that it squeaked as it should, it didn't have the saltiness I expect from fresh cheese curds. Usually the taste difference is due to the cheese being refrigerated, which is a sign of the product not being used fresh within the first 24 hours after production. Refrigeration would also help to explain why the poutine never got hot enough for the cheese to melt. With cheese being made by the restaurant owners, only minutes away, there should be no reason to refrigerate at all.

Although a charming restaurant with a history rooted in family tradition and the local farming community, Fromagerie Lemaire failed to live up to my expectations. The prices are certainly fair, but menu selections are far from unique and a poutine made with cheese that never melts just isn't worth the trip. If you happen to be in the Drummondville area and want a plain or smoked meat poutine, it is worth stopping in, but ask for a take-out with extra sauce, and warm it up at home.

Fromagerie Lemaire is located at 182 boulevard Industriel in St-Germain, at exit 170 on Highway 20. It is open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. You can also find information about the restaurant on the company web site.

Source:
"A propos de nous," Fromagerie Lemaire