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THE WEEK OF POUTINE. TORONTO. OCTOBER 3-7, 2011.

I’d never had poutine before arriving in Toronto for the first time in mid-August. I think the first I heard of it was in a Tumblr report from Lindstifa after one of her Canada trips. It sounded amazing.

French fries. Topped with cheese curds. Covered in brown gravy. Served in a bowl. With a fork.

Read that last paragraph again. Seriously.

Now, poutine is more Quebec than Ontario. I was chided and lectured more than once for not eating “real” poutine during my time in Canada. Apparently, poutine — as defined by the French Canadians in Montreal — must have a few attributes to be considered “real.” I don’t remember most of them, but I do remember something about the curds needing to have originated in Quebec and that they must squeak.

It wasn’t long before I realized I had an opinion on real poutine. That opinion? Fuck squeaking cheese curds. I like my curds melted by gravy and topped with some kind of meat (heresy when it comes to real poutine). During my first couple of visits to Toronto, I had bacon cheeseburger poutine, pulled pork poutine and — thanks to Sween, Damselesque and Do-Over — duck confit poutine (with apologies to Do-Over’s avatar).

As I left Toronto for the second-to-last time, I decided that my last visit would be dubbed the Week of Poutine. There was only one rule: poutine once a day, every day. These are my findings.

Day One: Curry Poutine from Town Crier Pub, 115 John Street. This wasn’t bad, although I couldn’t make it through the whole dish. The restaurant simply substituted a nice curry sauce for the brown gravy. Unfortunately, the curry and fries cooled off pretty fast in the night air on the patio. Once they resembled currysicles, I was done. Overall, this was the least satisfying poutine of the week. Like I said, though: still not too bad.

Day Two: Triple Pork Poutine from Smoke’s Poutinerie, 578 Queen Street West. Smoke’s is one of my favorite places on Earth. It’s nothing but a cash register, ten barstools, two counters and the craziest poutine you’ll find. They had two dozen options, including Nacho Poutine, Chili Poutine, Cheesesteak Poutine and Mama’s Poutine (chicken and green peas). The Triple Pork had homemade sausage, bacon, BBQ pulled pork and a heaping helping of awesome.

Day Three: Lobster with Bearnaise Poutine from the Bymark, 66 Wellington Street West. I missed poutine at lunch and thought I’d be unable to squeeze it in at all, because we had a fancypants client dinner that evening. Instead, I had the absolute best poutine of the trip. I’m convinced it’s the best in the world. Nothing I say about it will describe it any better than its name. At $35, all I can say is this: thank god for expense reports.

Day Four: Prime Rib Poutine from Bar Wellington, 520 Wellington Street West. My second favorite dish of the week. The only thing better than the prime rib and gravy combination was the distinct absence of cheese curds. Those curds were replaced by crumbled stilton bleu cheese. If it weren’t for the lobster the night before, this would have topped my list.

Day Five: Montreal Meat Poutine from The Counter in the Thompson Hotel. After an entire day with no poutine (for some reason it was absent from the sushi restaurant’s menu at dinner), I was able to sneak a little room service in while packing for my flight. It was wholly unsatisfying. The smoked meat was pretty good, but there wasn’t enough gravy. And look at those curds. You can tell how squeaky they were even from a crappy iPhone 3 pic. So fucking squeaky. It shivers my spine. It also guarantees a return to Toronto at some point in my future, because this can’t be the last poutine. It just can’t.