Secret Society

From the road it’s not much more than a worn out building. It offers very little information as to what goes on inside. For most, it wouldn’t even be noticed. Others would see Spanish merchants and not give it another glance. Within its brown and cream cloak a cabal of sorts meets. Lawyers, hair dressers and cooks, et al, offer videos, hairdos and money transfers right under the collective noses of Torontonians. They don’t advertise to the likes of me. They’re not in business to serve me. They’re there, for the most part, to serve each other.
A look around back reveals a door with basic sign saying “Food Court.” It’s as unassuming as it can be and an understatement if there ever was one. For this is no mere food court. This is an oasis. A portal to another part of the planet. A culinary vacation without ever leaving the city.
Hidden in the north west corner of the city, el Mercado Latino or Plaza Latina is a gem among jewels. Catering to the growing GTA Latin American community it’s anchor shop is Autentica Spanish Food and Empanadas. Of which I wrote earlier.
For the rest of the food court, English is an almost ignored language both written and spoken. It’s somewhat ramshackle in appearance with kiosks looking more like they were built by a local handyman rather than a licensed contractor. It can be intimidating I’ll admit. Even off putting. But muster up your courage and you’ll enjoy some genuine Latin flavour.Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador and even Cuba are among the countries represented here. Easily identified by the flags above. If not by a little deductive reasoning. 

First and foremost, don’t let the language barrier worry you. Most vendors have pictures at which you can point and generally speak decent, broken English. In fact the younger, the more likely they are to speak it. Secondly, I’ve noticed that anywhere you go, if you show interest in another peoples food they really open up to you. 

So on with the food.

Most items are cooked to order. Generally you place your order and take a seat. They bring out your goodies when they’re ready.

Being Latin it’s no surprise most vendors have “Real Coke.” That is, Coca-Cola made with cane sugar and not that health political hot potato HFCS. I prefer the diet versions of soft drinks but every once in a while it’s nice for a change. This version from Mexico is far better than that of Canada or the US. It’s smoother, less carbonated and doesn’t have a harsh sweetness associated with HFCS. This is why we fell in love with the drink in the first place.

El Sabroson

Who knew Peruvian food was so good. Other than Peruvians of course. East meets west in Peru where conquest from Spanish and immigration from China have shaped the cuisine. The name of this place says it all; “Delicious.”
Lomo Saltado is another shining example of fusion food. A simple Chinese stir fry mixed with French fries to create this conglomeration. It came nicely presented with a mound of rice at one end but the game plan here is to get the rice to the bottom of the dish and have it soak up the oils and grease. As is pictured below. This dish was stunningly good. It’s always great when one minute you don’t even know a food exists and the next you’re eating one of the tastiest things you’ve ever had. You have to wonder how anyone could keep it a secret. It’s the type of dish that is probably better the more greasy it is. Comfort food, hangover food, fusion food. Call it what you will but ultimately it’s delicious food.
As was the Jalea. Corn meal battered and fried seafood topped with a garnish of Peruvian Creole saladAt first bite, (shrimp with no garnish) it seemed rather boring. What makes this dish is the pickled onions and tomatoes. Contrasted with the heavier fried shrimp, calamari and fish it was excellent. I found the fried yucca side to be somewhat plain. That’s what yucca is though. Like a mild, starchy potato.
A hot sauce was provided that was bordering on deadly. This seemed to be little more than pureed habaneros. I didn’t add any since it didn’t need it.

Comedor Popular Ecuatoriano

Meaning, Popular Ecuadorian Dining room this stall is tucked into the corner and serves up some great soups (sopa) and ceviche. A number of other diners had terrific smelling soup from this vendor. We opted for ceviche though.

Ceviche is seafood “Cooked” in citrus juice. Rather than heat cooking the protein, the acid in the juice cooks it. The result is a fresh tasting, tart dish that’s sweetened slightly by the sugars pulled out of the added vegetables. Most often red onion and tomato. A little cilantro for garnish and colour rounds out the dish. As one can imagine, this ceviche mixto is just terrific. A seafood medeley of shrimp, scallops, mussels and calamari tossed with the vegetation. Keep in mind that a minimum of 15 minutes is required for the citric acid to work it’s magic.

La Fuenta del Puro Sabor

Translated to mean “the source of pure flavour”, more foods hailing from Ecuador are featured in this stall. They specialize in natural fruit juices. This mango shake, more like a smoothie in consistency was fantastic. A velvety texture and sublime mango taste was fabulous.

La Costenita Colombia

Near as I can tell, this translates to “The Colombian Coast.” During a crawl around the city sampling Colombian empanadas we paid a visit. Empanadas are a meat and potato filled pocket pie. Other meats and even veggie filled empanadas are sometimes offered but here it’s the Colombian standard beef and potato.The empanadas are cornmeal breaded and have a potatoey tasting filling similar to that of a samosa. They’re quite good.

Much better are the pupusas though. Especially when paired with the shredded cabbage. The fried tortilla is stuffed with cheese and pork and is just tasty.

For desert a dulce de leche churro from Autentica was the perfect finish.

You can find the el Mercado Latino at 9 Milvan Drive in Toronto, Ontario.

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Well that’s all for now from the Latin food court. Check back in for updates as I work my way through this place.

Davwud

The Great Toronto Ethnic Bakery Tour

If you've been reading along you'll probably know that I live in Toronto. At least, the Toronto area that is. What you may not know is that "The Big Smoke" as it's called is as multicultural a city as there is on the big blue marble. This of course means there is ethnic food from every corner of the globe.

With our love of ethnic foods and bakeries in tow, a small group of local Chowhounders set out to sample some of the delights, both sweet and savoury which our immigrant compatriots have bless the city.
There is too much to go into great detail about everything so I'll hit the high points in terms of taste and interst. Focusing on 4 of the 7 bakeries and 2 places we got side tracked.

Our first stop was Columbus Bakery at 2931 Dufferin St. south of Lawrence.

Specializing in Columbian baked goods, it's quickly becoming a favourite of mine and some of my partners in crime.
We tried over half a dozen treats from the sweet and the savoury as well as a Columbian soft drink.

Pony Malta: A carbonated drink with a malted molasses taste to it. I found it to be okay and if I went back would order it again. I doubt I'd have it somewhere else though.

Carimanolas: Fried cassava (yucca) fritters stuffed with minced beef that make a great little snack when you're on the road. Perhaps a touch greasy for some but I love them. Perfect with or without hot sauce.

Tamales: Not the same as most tamales as they are much bigger and not wrapped in corn husk but banana leaves. A great corn taste from the massa. This particular tamale was chicken and contained some vegetables and a whole drumstick. Bone and all. I thought it was the best tamale I'd had but sadly, it's in short company. Eaten on arepas (cornmeal pancake) with hot sauce it was fantastic. (sorry the pic is a bit blurry). The white thing is the arepa.

Other samples consisted of giant alfajores (a shortbread type double decker cookie), empanadas (made with a corn meal shell that certainly need the hot sauce), chicarones (fried pork belly, skin on. Can't go wrong there) and a tamarind stuffed puff pastry (we don't know the name of but was also good).

We showed up hungry and ate a little too much for our first stop. As you can imagine, we compounded the problem at our second stop.

On we went to Doce Minho a little further south at 2189 Dufferin St. specializing in Portuguese fare.

I'm a chocolate nut but if I'm not having chocolate my favourite sweet is pasteis de natas. The famous custard tarts are simply out of this world good.

There were two things surprising to everyone. A custard filled donut (bottom right). Given that is has custard in it, it probably shouldn't have surprised. The other was a neat little boat filled with a sweet custard that was the colour of sweet potato (top left). There was a good almond tart (middle) and a nice piece of chourico (we laughed at the sausage being a palate cleanser) that was quite tasty too(bottom left). (blurry again)

We also had some savoury pasteis as well. Salt cod, shrimp, beef and chicken flavoured fritters (I mean seperately, not all meat mixed together).

Athen's Pasteries is as you can imagine, Greek. Right in the heart of Greektown.

First thing you'll notice is the goodies were right in the front window. All portioned and cut right there for the passers by to see.

If the pastries in the front window wasn't enough to convince you you were on to something, the fact that they make and sell their own phyllo is should seal the deal.

Kreatopita: Much like Spanakopita but with a meat filling. Fantastic.

Spanakopita: (right) Perhaps the most well known of the Greek pasteries, it's phyllo stuffed with cheese and spinach. Most were in agreement it was the best we'd had. Strong spinach taste without overwhelming.
Tiropita: (left)As above with Feta. Often called cheese pie it too was great.

All the above had flaky, buttery phyllo.

We also had Loukoumades. (above on the bottom) A donut like doughball drenched in honey. Unbelievably sweet and somewhat one dimensional. The addition of cinnamon turns something somewhat boring into a nice sweet treat.

Later in the afternoon we made our way to Babu Bakery and Sweets. Located in the back of a strip mall at 4800 Sheppard Ave. E. it's a take out only Sri Lankan place offering both the sweet and the savoury. Suffering from sugar shock we stuck the hot tables. Upwards of a couple dozen delicious looking a la carte offerings all of which I'd never sampled. We took our goodies and had a picnic in a local park.

Beef String Hopper: (left) Named for the string like rice noodles. At first bite it was quite good but unassuming. As a few more bites came so did the burn. Not overpowering but a nice back bite to it.
Chicken Kothu Roti: (right) HELLO!! Bang, tasty with an up front heat that'll get your attention.
Chicken Hakkah: (bottom) My favourite. I like sauce and spice which is exactly what this delivered.
An ingenious "PeteRock" slipped out to Mona's Roti (4810 Sheppard Ave. E.) and picked up, you guessed it, roti. Mona's roti was very nice, fresh and perfect with all three dishes from Babu.

A couple of us had (what I'm told is) sahlbet. A fruity drink made from a base of milk and rosewater. It needs to be stirred as the rosewater sinks to the bottom. I liked it.

The other unscheduled but well worth it side trips was to Simba Grill at 375 Donlands Ave. to pick up some Tanzanian style samosas to compare with those from Samosa King. Not a bakery but since we were driving right by it....

Tanzanian style samosas sport a phyllo type wrapper. We opted for the beef filled.
I prefer this style and these were as good as it gets. Another reason why we stopped.

The more traditional style have a more standard dough. Both are deep fried.
The Samosa King samosas were fine. The are loved by many but it's most likely because of the price. (5/$1) I've had much better.

Another goodie from Mona's was a Doubles. A sandwich of two flatbreads filled with chana (spiced chick peas). It's called doubles. As in, one "Doubles." It was excellent.

We also stopped at Lebanese Bakery for (obviously) Lebanese. I thought it was okay, nothing special. I did like the baklava.
Ponchos Bakery offers up Mexican breads. It seems none of us are into Mexican breads. For the most part we found them dry. Probably they're meant to be eaten with coffee or some sort of drink. I did like the strawberry flavoured empanada.
We skipped Fragrant Bakery (Chinese) since we were just flat out spent. Sensory overload and/or food coma were the reason.

Well that's all for now folks.

Davwud