Potato Champion – Portland, OR

As you know (if you’ve been reading this blog for even a few days), I’m part of a poutine crawl – a group of us in the Twin cities like to try all the poutine in the area as a large group and then chat about it like faux-foodies. We even seek out poutine while we’re out of town. One of my favorite poutine places in the country is in Portland – the Potato Champion. It’s a food truck (even though I don’t think it moves) sort of poutine housed in a small circle of food trucks with a central picnic table area – actually these tiny food truck villages are really common in Portland. Get wise to it, Twin Cities!!!

This place has an incredible respect for the dish, as well as taking some liberties with it. Delicious liberties. They have traditional poutine, but they also have some variations of it, including satay poutine, pulled pork fries, PB&J fries, chili cheese fries, and beer battered cheese curds.

They also do some home-made sauces you can add to your dish. Pesto mayo, rosemary truffle ketchup, curry ketchup, chipotle mayo, bourbon honey mustard, harder mustard, veganaise, terragon anchovy mayo, and standards like ketchup and mustard. They were already sold out of a bunch of the sauces they usually have, since they carry about 20 different sauces.

Seriously, this place knows their business and there are so many combinations, that you’ll never get sick of eating here.

I was with Coach and Babo, so I didn’t want to blow their minds with anything too wacky. Besides we had been drinking a few beers – some of us more than others – and we needed late-night no-frills poutine to soak up some of the adult contents of those beverages. I went with the standard poutine. And a large, since there were three of us sharing. It’s a pretty generous helping that I’d be hard pressed to finish on my own. I’m glad I didn’t try.

The curds were some of the best I’ve ever had. I’m not sure where the curds come from, but they’re delicious. They hold their shape, but they’re soft and have a nice tang to them. The gravy is a meat gravy, probably beef, but it was dark and blurry outside. Hahahaha. The fries were crispy but moist on the inside – they’re double fried, if I’m not mistaken, which makes them extra crispy and amazing. This, in my opinion, is perfect poutine. This is how I judge all other poutines and have since I ate here the first time with ChickenLittle a few years back. It’s a great price, as well!

Do yourself a favor and hit this place up after a night of fun in Portland. It’s a great place to show people what real poutine is, but keep in mind, they’ll be ruined for all other poutine from here on out. Enjoy!

Potato Champion
1207 Se Hawthorne Blvd

Portland, OR 97214