Haute-N-Ready: Poutine at Red Robin, Eh?

Tacky Americana chain adds delicious Canadian cheesy fries to menu.

By JOHN LOCANTHI
Welcome to Haute-N-Ready, in which John Locanthi, Willamette Week’s trencherman of leisure, tastes the hastily made, modestly priced food of the common man.

The Trailer Park Boys

You can make a disgusting bastardized version of poutine at a combination A&W/KFC, but Red Robin is the first chain to my knowledge to add it as an official menu item. This purveyor of middling burgers and hanger of tacky Americana along the walls seemed an odd choice to import Quebecois cuisine to the states at first. But on second thought, it seems only natural that the place that prides itself on bottomless steak fries would eventually find the wherewithal to pour gravy and cheese on them. At $9 even, it fits right in with Red Robin's policy of everything costing at least $3 more than it should. (This extra charge is presumably going towards the bottomless fries you didn't ask for.)

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