Timing, as they say, is everything. Two weeks before COVID-19 shut everything down in March, Matt and Christie Vymazal had just signed the lease for their new brick-and-mortar location for The Flying V, which had been primarily a very successful food-truck business, one that had landed them at the New York City Wine & Food Festival in the early days of their business.
“It was scary,” says Christie. (She means the timing of the lease. Not Wine & Food Fest. Although that may have been a different kind of scary.)
Regardless, Matt and Christie don’t scare easily—this is a duo whose genesis can be attributed to making poutine in their food truck, driving around to different brewery owners and saying: “Try this. If you like it, can you let us park in your parking lot and sell it?” That’s how Matt describes the start of their food truck biz.
However, this husband and wife team who met at Kutztown University put everything they needed into place leading up to this unforeseen pandemic we’re all dealing with, and so they rolled with it because that’s what you have to do. You find a way. And they very quickly showed equal parts compassion and cleverness, moves that further engaged them with their customers—and which also caught the attention of the National Hockey League (more on that in a minute).
For example, to enable customers to achieve their poutine fix, they did a few things. They instituted a pay-what-you-can poutine, in an acknowledgment that people might not have as much cash to go around during a pandemic; it started at $1 minimum. They stuck to their schedule despite the odds, opened during the first week of August and stayed open, developed an even brisker following on Instagram, and even put together a video to let people know the best way to reheat poutine. Because when you’re buying a few servings of poutine to stock up for several days, as some customers did, knowing the most optimal way to reheat it becomes mission critical. (A cast iron pan, on the stovetop, just about edged out the oven. For so many reasons, please don’t even think about the microwave.)
They also called their curbside delivery “stick length” and would dangle bags of takeout food on the end of a hockey stick, which happens to provide the magical mandatory distance of six feet. The move caught the attention of the NHL Instagram account, which recirculated The Flying V’s post.
Matt’s in the kitchen, having worked as a chef locally, and Christie has the marketing acumen and the Canadian heritage (she’s from Ontario), so she’s an important arbiter of authenticity at The Flying V. (Their last name is partly why they’re named The Flying V: Canada geese also fly in a V formation.) The business was born of frustration, as many new and wonderful things often are. They personally had a need that could not be filled—for good poutine and items with peameal (we'll get to that). They did not understand why more people didn’t know about it, cook it right and/or offer it. So, like one often does in these situations, they took matters into their own hands, after trying it whenever they could and being disappointed. (“We have eaten a lot of poutine,” she says, laughing.)
“I would make it over and over and she would taste it and say, ‘No, not yet,’” explains Matt.
So, what qualifies as real poutine? There are a few criteria. First, let’s start with the gravy, since that takes the longest and is the first place people cut corners in any kind of culinary endeavor. No exceptions; it has to be made from scratch.
“Sometimes, you can just taste the packet,” says Matt, referring to just-add-water versions of sauces. There are no freeze-dried packet add-ins going on at The Flying V; they cook up 40 gallons of it twice a week, at 10 hours a clip. So, gravy: check. Thick enough to be pourable, but not too thick. Flavorful and rich, made from beef and chicken.
Then there’s the matter of cheese. Poutine is made with fresh cheese curds, which come from Wisconsin. Matt says some people would come to the food truck wondering what cheese curds were; it’s not the most familiar cheese item for most people. But these tender baby bits of cheddar come with specific requirements for freshness. “They should squeak when they hit your teeth, and then melt,” Christie explains.
In other words, the curds are warm and melt just enough, but still squeak. When your fork breaks into them, there’s no impossibly gooey cheese pull going on: We’re eating poutine, not nachos.
Finally, we need to address the fries.
“The fries on the bottom need to be crispy even if they have gravy on them,” she says.
“Soggy fries, that’s a huge thing. That kills it,” says Matt.
What’s the solution? They take the best Idaho potatoes, hand cut them and fry them twice in peanut oil, which helps create an extra-crispy fry that can withstand layers of gravy and cheese.
The Flying V truck still gets around, but as Christie explains, “We wanted to have a place where people could find us regularly, and to expand our menu.” Read: More Canadian fare you didn’t know you needed to eat, such as the Flat Iron—a.k.a. a peameal bacon sandwich, comprised of bacon that’s brined for several days in a proprietary mix of spices and then cured and rolled in cornmeal. It’s then fried up and served in what can loosely be described as Canada’s answer to a pork roll sandwich: It’s piled on a kaiser roll with pickles and mustard. (Fun fact: It’s called peameal because the bacon used to be rolled in ground yellow peas, but that changed after a pea shortage forced the ingenuity of cornmeal.)
Another Canadian specialty worth making room for in your stomach is the Montreal smoked meat poutine. Loosely speaking, it’s beef brisket but more along the lines of, say, pastrami than anything that might come to mind when you think of brisket. It’s dry-cured and smoked low and slow, and then served overtop the fries and gravy with the most exquisite drizzle of Dijon mustard. It more than works. Other iterations include breakfast poutine (egg included, yes), Buffalo chicken and a veggie poutine made with a shiitake-based gravy.
Expanding their offerings also means brunch is coming and it’s going to include, among other things, a variant on chicken and waffles that involves something called a potato waffle. (“It’s basically a large hash brown!” says Matt.) There will be no gluten in this item. In fact, all of their poutine is gluten-free and everything else is too, with the exception of the sandwiches and the burrito (the latter is stuffed with poutine).
The appeal of poutine exemplifies that old adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There may be a couple of other places that started cooking poutine around here before The Flying V (Two Rivers Brewing Company, we’re looking at your short-rib version), but the Vymazals are the first to specialize in it exclusively. They pretty much own poutine for at least a 100-mile radius, probably greater. It seems to be something that strikes a nerve, because folks from further afield are finding them too, from New York and Philly, for example. Perhaps it’s equal parts culinary curiosity and Canadian homesickness. Wherever they come from, those people are loving it. It’s novel but also familiar, and the creativity on display instills a desire to come back and try new versions.
“It’s really funny. All these sneaky Canadians in the Lehigh Valley are coming out of the woodwork, kind of in disbelief that we’re offering poutine,” says Christie. Believe it.
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The Flying V Poutinerie
201 E. 3rd St., Bethlehem | 610.419.2530 | flyingvpoutinerie.com
*Please check their website and/or social media for current operating hours and procedures.
Hours
Thurs.: noon–9 p.m.; Fri. & Sat.: noon–midnight; Sun.: noon–5 p.m.
Parking
Street
Reservations
Not necessary
What to Order
Start with the classic to get a foundational understanding of the balance of flavors that go into poutine. On your next visit—or with an adventurous friend who’s had it already, try the Montreal Poutine, which is truly unique. It’s almost like pastrami, but it’s not like pastrami because it’s, well, poutine. Try the NAFTA; if you’re old enough, you’ll get the joke. It’s a poutine meets burrito, but it’s more than just that.
