Choux Choux Charcuterie

Address: 830 Fort St.
Phone: (250) 382-7572
Website: http://www.chouxchouxcharc.com
Price: ~$10 lunch plats, other items vary.
Notes: Local meets, import cheeses and other amazing items of deliciousness. Ever-changing lunch is the best value in town.

Choux Choux is one of my favourite places in town - the quality is just always there. It's rare to come out not overwhelmed with some delicious purchase (or two). I really, really wish that I worked downtown because my partner-in-food-and-life eats here regularly and the envy eats me up inside some days.

Their plat du jour is definitely where it's at... usually it runs around the $10 mark, it's different every day and always features a fantastic piece of meat with amazing vegetables. I think the key is, as with so many of the really amazing restaurants, fresh and local as much as possible. They are open Saturdays, but not Sundays or Mondays.

Obviously, this isn't a safe haven for vegetarians. The sheer quantity and quality of fantastic meat produce makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Their chorizo sausage is dried and so well spiced it stands up against other flavours in your dish.


Service
The service here is always extremely knowledgable, although if I go in with my P.I.F.A.L. it's exceedingly friendly as well. I think they appreciate people who are interested in food, and curious about trying new things.  I think they don't put up with too much pretentiousness from their customers, either which helps to keep things real.

Food
April 29, 2011
My partner-in-food-and-life brought home some Choux Choux for dinner. That's true love, right there!

First was a fabulous potato salad! I love potatoes, and a good potato salad is a thing to behold. There's a spice in this one that I can't place - something that reminds me of Chinese cuisine. There were slivers of rosemary, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the taste, as well as garlic, if I'm not mistaken. There were kernels of corn in the salad, although some of them were a tad on the chewy side.

The highlight of the evening, however, were the hot dogs. They were so flavourful that it would be a shame to cover them up with any ketchup or mustard or relish or anything, although they could make really fun fancy dogs if the mood arose. We were lazy, so just lightly boiled but they would be out of this World if we had barbecued them! I'm never buying any other hot dogs again as long as I live.


March 11, 2011
Today I was on a mission - a cheese plate for my Granny's birthday. It wasn't cheap, in fact if I'd ordered a little earlier I could have picked up one pre-made served on a lovely piece of slate all nicely done up for me but I wasn't that organized.

The cheeses were overall quite lovely. I erred on the side of non-cow cheeses due to my Granny's food allergy. It turned out quite well! Of course, chevre noir was on the plate which is always good. Two sheep cheeses are also available right now: one which was mild and creamy, and another which had a funny texture but lovely olivey taste... unfortunately I threw out the packaging so I don't remember the names. The one cow cheese was beemster, an aged cheddar with lovely little crunchy bits of protein in it and it seemed to be the crowd favourite. Granny also has a love for pate, so that made it on the plate too. I can't remember if I've had Choux Choux foie gras before, but this was probably the best I've ever, ever had. So delicious! 

The highlight, however, was the mustard. Ooohhhhh the mustard! It was called "black mustard" and is a dark, grainy mustard filled with little pieces of black olives and huge chunks of roasted garlic. I think there's also some secret AWESOME in there.  It was amazing. I'm trying hard not to eat the rest of it on crackers for breakfast. Drool.