927 Center St., Manchester, (860) 649-4011

Wow, that was kind of weird. Weird on a number of levels. That was my feeling after eating at Chez Ben, a charming little Canadian & American diner in Manchester. I should say that I thought it was a little weird before I even drove out to this curious but quaint eatery. Canadian cuisine, what could it mean? I was puzzled, mildly excited, and, frankly, a little nervous. I have family in Quebec, and I’ve eaten excellent French cuisine in Quebec City, and I’ve enjoyed maple syrup pies. Still, the subject of Canada’s unique foodways has always been a mysterious one. To help suss out the cultural confusion, with Lisa unavailable, I brought along an actual Canadian friend.

If you’re going to pay a visit to Chez Ben, you should know a few things first. They don’t take credit cards. They’re closed on Mondays. And they close at 2 p.m., so time you’re trip accordingly. Oh, and it’s kind of hard to find, or maybe it would be more accurate to say it’s easy to miss. Chez Ben is located not far off of I-84, but because of the way the roads thread past the diner, with one-way lanes and turn restrictions, you may want to have your GPS activated.

Once inside, Chez Ben has certain time- and space-warp qualities. I thought that perhaps we’d been teleported to some roadside diner, just north of the Canadian border, circa 1982. Many of the customers spoke French. Holiday decorations adorned the opening into the kitchen. The cook wore a paper hat.

My biggest hope was that Chez Ben would serve poutine, which, I think it’s safe to say, is the quintessential food of Quebec, and perhaps the thing that first comes to most people’s minds when the subject is Canadian cuisine. Never had it? I hadn’t either, but I was in luck (sort of). Chez Ben serves poutine (which is basically cheese curds and gravy served over French fries). They even serve two varieties: regular poutine, and poutine with chicken and peas. I had to have it. Poutine is a subject that seems to divide Canadians. Either they love it, in a nostalgic kind of way, or they hate it, in a why-do-we-have-to-be-known-for-that? kind of way. My Canadian friend didn’t want to taste it; he hardly wanted to look at it. The Barron’s Food Lover’s Companion calls poutine “the ultimate in French-Canadian junk food.” I found the poutine to be salty and mushy, not too cheesy, the kind of thing you could imagine ordering after a night out drinking those strong Canadian beers.

I also ordered another Quebecois specialty called creton. When I asked our waitress about it, she said it was “head cheese.” Translation: a pâté-like spread made using the meat from the head of a pig or calf. Creton sounds much more unpleasant than it tastes. This was served with pieces of thick buttered toast, and it, too, was very salty, like the poutine, but it reminded me of a cross between kibbe (a Middle Eastern dish) and liverwurst. Not bad at all.

The “Canadian cuisine” section, tucked away on the back page of the menu, is really just a fraction of the offerings at Chez Ben. We didn’t sample the salmon or meat pies. We did have a satisfying fried fish sandwich. They also serve pretty much all the standard diner fare: breakfast, burgers and sandwiches.
As far as we know, this is the only place in the area that serves poutine (or creton), so, for that reason alone, you should probably drive out and sample the stuff. At least once.

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