My first food review as a Kingstonian is St. Hubert's Chicken. I know I know I should've done something a little better, but as a Swiss Chalet aficionado I was curious to see what the stinking French have been going on about all this time. From what I gather, St. Hubert is the Quebec version of the Elvis Chalet (named that by my uncles because legend has it whenever Elvis Presley was in Canada he'd crush 3 or 4 full chicken dinners in one sitting). St. Hubert has a few locations sprinkled around eastern Ontario and the Maritimes, but the vast majority of their restaurants are in fucking Quebec. I've met people from Quebec who swore up and down that St. Hubert was waaaay better than my beloved Elvis Chalet. I tend to take whatever a Frenchman tells me with a grain of salt, mainly because they've been so dead wrong about almost everything, especially their choice of shitty hockey team. So I decided to get some delivered, and see how it compares to Swiss Chalet.
The meal comes to you in this lovely cardboard box, while Swiss Chalet comes in this plastic thing. If you're one of those holier-than-thou environment people I am sure you think that's just swell. The problem was those ribbons around it were impossible to cut. I broke my scissors when I sat on them one day back in London before I moved, and I have never bothered getting another pair, and all my kitchen knives are as dull as fuck, so it took me a few hacks to get at er.
So here we go, I ordered my go-to Swiss Chalet order, the Double Leg dinner. The first thing I noticed was the two things of gravy, apparently that's standard, you don't have to pay extra for a second.
BUN: Swiss Chalet's bun is way better, this is just a toasted Wonder Bread brand hamburger bun they give you, not to say the St. Hubert bun tastes like shit or anything, you can't really fuck up bread, but I definitely prefer the Swiss Chalet bun.
FRIES: First I should say that you can't judge fries that have been delivered, it is absolutely impossible to make delivered fries as crispy and hot and delicious as fries you get in the restaurant. That being said Swiss Chalet wins the fry category, St. Hubert fries were nothing special, they were like what you'd get in any cafeteria. Swiss Chalet puts a bit of effort into them, and they are still OK when you get them delivered. I am sure these fries would have been way better in the restaurant, so I don't think it's fair to judge.
COLESLAW: I got a small thing of shitty coleslaw that I'm never gonna eat in my fridge, does anyone want it?
CHICKEN: The chicken was delicious, they gave me two decent sized pieces, and it was moist and the skin was nice and crispy. It's hard to tell if I like St. Hubert chicken better than the chicken at Swiss Chalet. Based on memory, I think the Swiss Chalet was a bit more seasoned than St. Hubert, but what the fuck do I know. Maybe an actual side by side taste test is in the cards, but that would be kind of going all out for this stupid blog.
GRAVY: Hands down Elvis Chalet wins this category. The gravy at Swiss Chalet is the nectar of the Gods, I think they should set up fountains of Swiss Chalet gravy around town instead of useless water. All that being said St. Hubert gravy was still pretty god damned good, it went really well with the chicken, and it saved the fries.
Overall, the edge has to go to Swiss Chalet, I don't know if it's because I've eaten there my entire life and have been there dozens of times, and I've only eaten at St. Hubert once, I guess I am set in my chicken ways. I will definitely order it again, mainly for one thing though - free delivery, plus they take debit on delivery. Swiss Chalet is stuck in the stone age only accepting cash and charging a ridiculous surcharge for delivery. It's pretty dumb that there is a Swiss Chalet down the street from me and they'll charge $3 to deliver but the St. Hubert is on the other side of town and they don't charge shit.
I'm not sure what the next place I will review will be, if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears. Leave a suggestion in the comments or hit me up on twitter @didhenley. Big Brother 15 starts next week, and I'll be posting weekly reviews starting after the first episode! Rumour has it Rachel's sister is gonna be a houseguest this year, uggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh, hopefully she is not as fucking annoying as Rachel is.
2 comments:
I give the edge to St. Hubert, what with part of my being having francophone blood coursing through it.
Honestly though i've always preferred St. Hubes. First, you've got the mascot - who is himself a chicken, championing the consumption of his family and friends as long as he gets his millions of dollars and endless supply of narcotics. Not to mench the white gloves - no fingerprints.
If the St. Hubert chicken showed his face among his own kind he would be torn to shreds almost instantly.
So yeah, there's lots of reasons I like the french rotiss. The fries are SUPER CRISPY fresh. The gravy is absolutely amazing, in a more traditional way. (i consider Chalet graves almost a sauce)
The meat is quite comparable and succulent, and they have a deal called Table D'Hote in the QB thats factors in soup and dessert. Nails.
I am super jealous that you got to eat St. Hubes, seriously.
You make an excellent point on the gravy, and now that I think of it I think it was you that hyped St. Hubert to me all those years ago, and I've heard it from various people since. I'd like to try it in the restaurant, because even Swiss Chalet delivery fails in comparison to eating it in house.
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