Pommes Frites

I first introduced poutine to my wife when she came to Canada many years ago. For those who are not familiar with the dish, poutine is a Canadian concoction consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds and covered with brown gravy. It doesn’t look like the most appealing dish at all at first glance and I knew my wife wasn’t even considering trying it. Hesitantly, she did and couldn’t believe how great it tasted. Ever since, she became a convert. But finding poutine in New Jersey is the ultimate quest. Of course no one has ever heard of it. By accident, my wife discovered a place in New York City called Pomme Frites that serves just French fries. More importantly, they had poutine on the menu! It meant that we had to make a trip into the City for this absolutely delicious concoction.

Pomme Frites is a specialty shop serving authentic Belgian fries, or as the Belgians call them, “pomme frites”. Fresh cut potatoes are used to make these superior tasting French fries; it’s crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside. This is because the potatoes are fried twice resulting in a nice golden color and making it incredibly crispy. I knew the poutine that was created over here was authentic when it stated that the Canadian Cured Cheddar Cheese was imported from Quebec and chicken gravy was used as the topping.

For those looking for other variety, there is a wide selection of tasty sauces to try with your fries, such as the Vietnamese Pineapple Mayo, the Roasted Garlic Mayo, the Pesto Mayo, the Smoked Eggplant Mayo, Parmesan Peppercorn, and Irish Curry to name a few. All sauces are $0.75 extra or three sauces of only $2.00. The freshly cut potatoes comes in three sizes: regular ($4.00), large ($6.25) and double ($7.75).

This is really one of these “hole-in-the-wall” places that can be easily missed or barely fit people inside its establishment. But people line up in a single file trying to get inside indicating that it’s a very popular place. There are a few chairs in the back but I don’t think it fits more than ten people.

Pomme Frites is such a great and unique place to visit when in New York City. I can make a “poor man’s” version of poutine to satisfy an initial craving but it’s nowhere as good as the authentic version. Thankfully, Pomme Frites exists to correct my mistakes.

I liked this place even better than Frjtz in SF, and Frjtz was already very high on my list of places I love. Pommes Frites’ fries taste about the same, but their portions are larger and their sauces are better! I’ve only been here once, so I haven’t been able to try a lot of sauces, but the wasabi mayo here is packed with wasabi flavor (but not so much that it’s too spicy to eat!). The place is really tiny (enough room to seat about 10-15 people), but it’s cool because all their tables have 2" holes drilled into them – so you can stick the base of your fries cone in the hole and eat them like that! I remember coming here late and thinking if they had a place like this at home I’d come here all the time.!

I’m so happy that I finally got to try this place! The fries were pretty good, and the sauces were DELICIOUS!! Before making a decision on what sauces to get, they allowed me to sample about half of them, and my top picks were the Rosemary Garlic Mayo, Vietnamese Pineapple Mayo & Sweet Mango Chutney Mayo. The Poutine is fantastic! I can’t wait to go back!

Great late night stop downtown, and well worth the time it takes to agonize over your sauce choices. I loved the curry ketchup, cheese and chutney, but I’ve heard wonderful things about the cheese curd and gravy. It’s good if you can get a spot to sit in this tiny place but the fries are easy to take for a walk. The cones are great to share but don’t be afraid to get your own! Really reasonable prices, and the fries are unparalleled.

Some aspiring film student at nearby NYU should recognize that a fry at Pomme Frites is a star and not a supporting character like it is in most American meals. At first glance, the place has the feel of a low budget student film: small, cramped with no wiggle room but when the perfomers (fries) are ready it’s award-winning. The fries on their own would be enough. Perfectly cooked through and through and put in an easy to reach into paper cone they hit the spot on a painfully cold NYC night. The fries and salt fed my raw, action-adventure tastes. Then, I mixed in a couple of the Asian-fusion inspired sauces like the sweet mango chutney mayo and sun-dried tomato mayo and the flavor-story took on depth and layers like romantic comedy that makes you smile and remember what it felt like when you fell in love. Pomme Frites and the star of its menu are leading actors in their own right and when served this way will never have to worry about getting noticed.

yummy yummy fries, but the real reason to go here is the variety of condiments, that would make anything taste good. Plus they are open late and located right in the heart of the east village, which meant i often had to walk by (or made myself walk by) after a night of drinking. The perfect thing to soak up all that booze…

i had an enjoyable time here

I thought it was okay, nothing spectacular and nothing I would crave and go out of my way for.

we’re not going there for “just fries”. that’s not what makes pommes frites so special. give the place a visit and see for youselves =)

i LOOOOVE vietnamese pineapple! =)*

They’re just fries.

The best fries and an impressive assortment of condiments!

It’s not the be-all and end-all of fries, but I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like this place.

Lots of fries for a small size. The dips/sauces are inventive and good.

mmm pomme frites. What else can I say? Delish if you’re craving them. Tons of dips to choose from. I like garlic mayo. So good… especially with Starbucks. drool

Disagree with some of the reviewers, this is the ONLY decent place to get frites in the city. New York needs these one specialty restaurants and fries seems to be where ever restauranteur drops the ball or in this case the gallon of frying oil. The fries are cooked to a very crispy stage in induvidual batches. Yeah they are often short little stubs, but they are stubs of heaven. The sauce selection is generous and quite accebtable, esp the use of belgium frite sauce and the availabitly of malt vinagar. Finally who doest love holding a cone of fries on a cold day and eating half of them on the subway ride home.