A Compilation of Restaurants in the Timmins Area serving Chicken Breasts
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Restaurants appear in no particular order. Click here to view local restaurants and product information on chicken breasts.
Align your values with local restaurants who feel the same way about food as you do. But what do you do if you are travelling and don’t know the local area? Some nutrition and allergy information can be found online for larger food franchises, but it rarely paints a complete picture. What is the easiest and quickest way to find out if your next chicken breast contains 100% chicken DNA?
The best strategy I’ve found is to call ahead to food establishments mid-morning or mid-afternoon. There will usually be someone at a management level available to take your questions, and sometimes the chef is available for a swift discussion. If you’ve done some research, state what you’ve found and ask to have it confirmed. Menus can sometimes change faster than websites.
Briefly explain your concerns e.g. “I’m looking for a restaurant that serves chicken which hasn’t been plumped/restructured/massaged/marinated/seasoned etc” or “I have allergies and/or health condition XXX. I need to know that the chicken does not contain XXX or if it has been processed with water/salts”
Ask how the chicken arrives to the restaurant - fresh or frozen? Is it whole bird or select butchered pieces? If it is butchered prior to arrival, is it bone-in? Does it arrive pre-cooked or already cooked and diced from the factory? Does it come with an ingredient list? Many establishments welcome the opportunity to tell customers about how food is purchased and prepared in their kitchens and why it is done a certain way.
To avoid unlabelled injected meat don’t consume pre-formed or pre-cooked products - ever.
Suspect or be suspicious of boneless, skinless chicken pieces, chicken pieces that have a trademark, chicken that comes pre-cooked, chicken ‘strips’ or cooked & diced chicken products, chicken that is labeled or marketed as ‘seasoned’, chicken products that are frozen.
All of these styles of ‘value added’ chicken will demand follow up questions. It may turn out that the chicken and your food values are inline, but you won’t know until you inquire further. The more processed a meat product is before it arrives to a restaurant, the more likely it is to have been altered.
Allergy indicators can give clue to additional ingredients when an ingredient list can’t provided. Sodium content in relation to protein content in relation to serving size can provide other clues to how the meat has been handled.
To start you off, a list of local restaurants and product information has been compiled and can be found here
Smaller restaurants are often much more aware of the origin of the ingredients used in their menu items and can easily answer your questions. It is far more likely that the chicken used in these premises contains 100% chicken DNA because the ingredient list for the chicken is… well,… just chicken.
With an aging Boomer generation, socially conscious Millennials and an overall increase in allergies for our entire population, requested specialty menu options are occurring with greater frequency. Marie-France Lafleur, the new head chef for Le Voyageur Restaurant is in the process of making menu changes. Balancing creativity and being responsive to the requests the resort guests, is a challenge that she is excited to meet. Not having to satisfy the demands and constraints of a franchise, gives her (and other smaller restaurants) complete control over the quality of the ingredients used in the menu items.
Small establishments can acquire local ingredients quite easily in comparison to large franchises. This brings true meaning to the phrase ‘farm to fork’.
Currently, Radical Gardens and Coffee Warehouse are using local chickens in their menu items. Products from Graham Acre Farm, located in Timmins, are retailed exclusively at Coffee Warehouse. Radical Gardens sources their local chickens from Garden Pleasures Farm, located in the New Liskard area, owned by Ross & Bev Brubacher. They are also supplied by Quality Meats, another New Liskard based business.
Seek out these smaller places, with their unique and original atmospheres, when your Northeastern Ontario travels bring you to Timmins. Making food in a small setting is a challenge today. Find out what passions keep these owners going. What interests do you share with them? What is going to keep you coming back over and over again.
Spark up a conversation with Marc Soucie & Vicki D’Amour at Coffee Warehouse, Claudette Lambert at Aline’s Tea Shop, Marie-France Lafleur at Le Voyageur Restaurant located in the Cedar Meadows Resort, Mary Ellen Pauli at Christopher’s Coffee House, Brianna Humphrey at Radical Garden’s and the recently independent Casey’s Grill Bar owned by Brian and Sylvie Reid.
Continue the conversation on social media. Find these places on sites like Facebook and Instagram. Share and promote what you love about these places. Tag people - keep the dialogue and story telling flowing. Your stories matter. It is often the best way for other people to find a dining experience to suit their needs when your values are similar to theirs.