Just a little over three months ago, Colorado’s eclectic food truck scene added a new concept dedicated solely to poutine inspired dishes. Poutine Me — the mobile poutinerie was created by brotherly duo, Dean and Bill Hirschfield.
While these two are Colorado natives, it was Dean who fell in love with the Canadian dish. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, Dean was a street performer in Denver‘s three-member bucket drumming group — New York Street Boys. This group had the opportunity to play in a Just For Laughs tour in Canada where Dean earned his deep appreciation for poutine.
Now working as a full-time musician and music teacher, Dean always had the romantic idea to bring poutine to Colorado. While COVID-19 related closures and event cancellations left a lot of extra time on his hands, he finally had the opportunity to really put some motion behind this fever dream. Fortunately for Dean and his wife Desiree, their music lesson business (Do-Re-Mi) out of Littleton, Colorado was able to adapt and pivoted to virtual lessons.
While Dean’s tenured experience with music and performance makes for great entertainment in a small food trailer, it leaves little room for familiarity in the food industry. Luckily, he grew up watching his late mother smoothly operate the family kitchen and adapted some of those techniques by osmosis.
“I watched my mom in the kitchen so much growing up, her passion for cooking really inspired me,” Dean said.
Having been a Colorado native, one of her signature dishes was green chile. After all those years of learning by proxy, Dean added a green chile topped poutine dish to the menu as a nod to his mother and her roots—the Colorado Poutine ($12).
When you think of these two brothers — one a musician and the other a career construction contractor — a delicately balanced poutinerie isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, that’s exactly what Dean and Bill have accomplished with this intimate and ever-expanding fare. The menu includes poutine served four ways — smothering hand-cut French fries, in between a hamburger patty and its corresponding bun, drizzled across an all-beef hot dog or accompanied by pork green chile made with Pueblo peppers. Just like traditional poutine found in Canada, each dish can be found with chunks of cheese curds.
Though Dean is not able to get cheese curds directly from Canada, he is fortunate to outsource from the next best place in the states — Wisconsin.
While most restaurants pride themselves on homemade recipes, the Hirschfield’s pride themselves on their trailer made gravy. The O.G. Poutine ($12) is made virtually from scratch starting with a two-step frying system for the hand-cut potatoes — the first fry is at a low temperature to cook the inside and the second fry is at a high temperature to crisp the outside — leaving a pile of golden strips as the base for their gravy and mild cheddar cheese curds.
“The poutine is as close to authentic as we can get. We do like to put chopped green onions for garnish which isn’t so authentic. But you can order the poutine sans American, without green onions,” Dean said.
While the menu offers a select display of poutine inspire dishes, the team is looking to add some dessert concepts and seasonal specials like gumbo among others. The mobile poutinerie is mainly located southeast of Denver in Aurora, Parker and Littleton.
For updated locations and hours, the schedule can be found online or featured on the Go Truckster application.
All Photography By Kori Hazel