One of the joys of traveling abroad is discovering new foods. Countries and cultures are often tied to the types of food people eat, so it’s a great way to explore and get to know a new country.
But sometimes, you get a bit homesick and long for a familiar taste. And when traveling with kids, no matter how adventurous they are, there are times when you just need to find that familiar dish you know they won’t complain about. As a French-Canadian who grew up in Quebec City, my “comfort” foods would run to maple syrup and poutine. Neither of which have made much inroads internationally.
So imagine my surprise when we stumbled upon a poutine food stand at a weekend market in Manila’s Ortigas Centre neighbourhood. Our family of four had been abroad in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines for about two months, so the idea of eating something that didn’t have rice or noodles and was a taste of home was extremely appealing.
I knew though that having poutine in Manila was going to be different. Back home, we take our poutine seriously. It’s a simple mix: fries, cheese and gravy. But ask any Quebecker, and they’ll tell you poutine is much more than the sum of its parts. The fries have to be thick and crisp, the cheese squeaky and the sauce thick, savoury and hot enough to begin melting the cheese.
I approached the stand skeptically, but knowing full well that there was no way I was going to pass up a poutine, no matter what.
On the menu: adobo poutine, really? What is a cubana-na-na – au poulet, poutine? And honestly, who puts mushroom and longanisa sausage on a poutine?
But we were here, and there was poutine: you never say no to poutine.
As I was putting in my order, I got talking to the guy running the place.
Turns out Earvin “Ace” Lacsamana is a Filipino-Canadian from Montreal, who had moved to the Philippines about two years earlier to pursue a basketball dream. He’s playing in a semi-pro league, but a chance encounter with Ruby Maik led him to manning a fryer as well.
Ruby, a 29-year-old Manila-born Filipina, is an entrepreneur with big dreams. After Ruby and Ace hit it off, she told him about her idea of starting a food business, pasta in a box. Her inspiration and entrepreneurial spirit were contagious, but Ace quickly convinced her that she needed to do something unique in Manila: poutine.
“When Ace told me about poutine, I was hooked,” she recalls “I thought it would be great to take this simple yet tasty dish and add some of the traditional Filipino foods that I grew up with.”
From there, Ace began testing different gravies while Ruby tried different fusion ideas. Cheese curds are impossible to find in the Philippines, and too expensive to import, so the two settled on a mozzarella cheese.
Once they had the base, Ruby set to work trying out different Filipino toppings. They have adobo, sisig/chicharon, spicy chicken, but their best-seller is a combination longanisa (sweet Filipino sausage) with mushroom, which they’ve named the longshroom. Adding toppings to poutines isn’t something new. In Quebec, you can find poutine with ground beef, chicken, smoked meat and even pasta sauce. Poutine is even making it into high end restaurants across the world, including New York and San Francisco, where you can find lobster, caviar or foie gras. Ace and Ruby wanted to make “poutine for Filipinos”, which was how they got the name: Poutino’s.
As a family, we ordered the adobo poutine as well as the longshroom. So what did I think, sitting at a picnic table in the middle of Manila feeling somewhat homesick as I plunged my plastic fork into the mass of melted cheese, fries and chicken pieces dripping with gravy: It’s different, but it’s definitely poutine.
Right now, you can find Ruby and Ace at the Greenfield market in Mandaluyong on weekends, experimenting with new dishes. But if Ruby and Ace have their way, you’ll find Poutino’s across Manila, in all the major malls in no time.
