I only ate one thing at Augusto al Gusto and I’m ashamed of it and how good it was and how much I don’t regret it.
I’ve lived in Montreal for 4 years and this was the first time I ordered takeout to eat at home. Sure, I’ve ordered takeout to eat on the go when I’m out and didn’t have tie to sit in a restaurant and enjoy, but this I picked up in giant styrofoam, horribly non-ecofriendly containers and biked back to my place with it from Verdun. I ate in my apartment.
Why not just eat at the restaurant, then? Because I had to order an entire chicken and I was on my own, craving rotisserie. I didn’t want just a thigh and breast. I wanted wings and lots and lots of leftovers. It’s such a good deal to get a whole bird. You can use leftover meat for sandwiches, stir-fries, cold plates of meat and veg and anything else your little heart can hope for with chicken involved. And I didn’t order anything else from the menu. Just the rotisserie chicken. I didn’t know if came with a giant container of fries and a family-size salad with avocado, cucumber, tomato, and a whole spread of above-par take-out salad ingredients.
The other thing you should know is I love Romados, but I got really sick the last time I went there. MSG? Wheat? I don’t know what. And I assume Augusto al Gusto used something like one of those things in its marinade, but try getting that out of the woman who answers the phone. I tried English, I tried French, and my phone connection was horrible, but just placing the order was tricky. I was not about to try to ask if there was gluten in it. Actually, I think I did try. It went like this:
“Is there gluten in the marinade for the chicken? Est-ce qu’il y a du gluten dans la marinade sur le poulet?”
Answer: “La serenade? Poulet? You want poulet?”
“Yes, a whole chicken. Is there gluten in it? What’s on the chicken?”
“It’s rotisserie.”
“Yes pollo alla brasa. What’s on it?”
“You want poulet entier. Twenty two dollars.”
“Oh, ok…but hat’s on the chicken?”
“Phone number?”
See how lucky I was to get dinner that night? I could have starved to death! (In retrospct, it may not even have been marinaded.) Instead, after biking down 15 minutes later my order was almost ready and the smiling woman was there to greet me. The serving was huge. A giant plastic bag half my height that I precariously balanced in my bike basket. It was full of a container of a whole chicken, wings bursting from its styrofoam, gravy for the chicken (don’t think that’s so Peruvian, and I quickly threw it out, doused with flour as it surely was…and worse – bland), and two mystery styrofoam containers (the above-mentioned fries and salad I didn’t expect).
The fries were good for fries, but they needed salt, except the chicken was salty that it was clear you were supposed to eat them together to balance. Except the starchy potatoes muted the salty, spice of the chicken. The chicken was just charred goodness. I have no idea what other spices were on it. Probably just oil and salt and pepper and maybe garlic or oregano but those are guesses. Even the wings were perfect, though. Crisp skin everywhere. Juices oozing. KFC should be banished to a cold, horrible place and this chicken should reign supreme. No, that’s not fair. This was so much better that it’s embarrassing even to make the comparison. It was lightyears better than St-Hubert and Swiss Chalet. How about that?
And you have to eat all the skin while it’s crisp. Once the chicken cools and the skin softens and you reheat it for leftovers it’s no good. The meat on its own is fine – generally bland since it’s a mass produced bird – but the skin is where the salt and fat is, thus the flavour. After the skin is gone you move onto the fries. And then, in French style (not Peruvian) you eat salad. Peruvians don’t eat green salad. That requires washing the greens in unclean water. But the salad here was fresh and even made me feel a little virtuous vegetable-wise, with a little lime dressing that I wasn’t sure if it was for the chicken or the salad. I tried it on both. There was a creamy cilantro salsa for the chicken (or salad?) and I threw it out because of the cream.
Boy was I happy. Get thee to Augusto al Gusto with friends so you don’t eat all that chicken skin on your own. That’s not good for your arteries, but it is good for your serotonin levels. I was very, very happy for approximately 4 days. That’s how long it takes me to eat a whole chicken.
Very, very happy.
They have other things, like unsustainable ceviche and deep-fried meat or seafood jalea, but I can’t tell you if those are any good. Better overdose on chicken and then when you don’t want any more chicken, try everything else. Practical advice, no?
Leave a Reply