Pop quiz: how many Saskatchewan food specialties can you name? There are only two.
Saskatoon berry pie and Regina-style pizza. Other foods like perogies and cabbage rolls can be found outside Saskatchewan. Foods like spudnuts (potato doughnuts) and Doukhobor bread are only available during summer fairs. Sure, these invoke loving memories for Saskatchewan residents but the casual tourist might be interested in something more unique.
The answer is found in Regina.
Regina
Pizza as deli sandwich
Regina-style pizza has a small but dedicated following. It’s a minor variation of pizza that is unknown in other parts of Saskatchewan, let alone Canada. Heck, even some Regina residents don’t know that their pizza is a style on its own.
The defining characteristic of Regina-style pizza is its stack of toppings. It’s like a deli sandwich or lasagna. Different ingredients are spread on the dough in tiers and finished off with cheese as the top layer. When one cuts into the pizza, one should clearly see all the layers. Other than the distribution of toppings, it’s pretty much a normal North American pizza. Thick, doughy crust, smothered with mozzarella and non-gourmet ingredients.
Typical toppings are cheap and the same as national restaurant chains: ham, salami, pepperoni, bacon, green peppers, onions, mushroom, olives, pineapple, and more. The signature combination is “all dressed”, which includes all the deli meats and some token vegetables.
A good Regina-style pizza shouldn’t be overstuffed. A tendency is for the bread to become soggy and weighed down by all the ingredients. Connoisseurs talk about meat quality, but frankly there isn’t a big difference in cured meats at that price point. Don’t expect charcuterie. It’s mass-market processed meat.
In this series of iconic Canadian foods, we travel to Calgary, the birthplace of ginger beef, Caesar cocktail, and mostly meh Canadian chains like Hy’s, Joey, Moxies, and OPA! of Greece.
Calgary
Elements of Canadian comfort food
Southern USA has fried chicken and hush puppies. Canada has ginger beef and poutine. They are unhealthy, easy to make but difficult to master. There is no set recipe for ginger beef but it’s generally deep-fried beef strips with a ginger sauce. The most apt description I can think of is “beef candy”.
When done well, the exterior is crispy and the meat has a jerky-like quality. The beef is on the lean side, on the verge of dry. But the meat should flake easily. It’s a tricky texture to accomplish. Ginger pieces are incorporated into the batter or during frying. Sweetness, lots of it, comes from the gooey sauce.
Ginger beef is a Western Canadian thing. It rarely appears in Toronto or anywhere east of Winnipeg for that matter. Not sure why because the cooking style is similar to General Tso’s chicken, sweet and sour pork, and other Westernized Chinese dishes.
Updated on 2021-10-19 to include Las San Sivar and Pupuseria Delicias Costa del Sol. Rankings have changed.
I tried (almost) all the pupuserias in Toronto so you don’t have to
Ever since Emporium Latino burned down in October 2020, it left a pupusa-shaped hole in my heart. It was where I had pupusas for the first time and I still have fond memories of their comforting masa and spicy curtido. I’ve struggled to find a comparable replacement. When it seemed like Emporium Latino was not destined to re-open, it was time to journey across Toronto for a worthy successor.
Ode to pupusas
Pupusas are emblematic of El Salvador cuisine. In fact, I visited the country solely to eat pupusas. Pupusas are corn flour pancakes stuffed with various ingredients and then toasted on a griddle. The corn flour used is invariably Maseca.
Traditional fillings don’t have a lot of range. It’s any combination of:
Frijoles refritos: mashed and fried beans
Queso: cheese; either mozzarella or queso fresco
Chicharrón: finely-ground pork, fried with tomatoes, onions, and other aromatics
Zucchini
Loroco: flower bud with a grassy taste, unique to El Salvador and some parts of Guatemala
The popular combination of frijoles, queso, and chicharrón has its own name: pupusa revuelta. Also known as pupusa con todo (with everything).
Pupusas are usually accompanied by curtido and salsa de tomate. Curtido is a lightly fermented cabbage and carrot slaw, seasoned with oregano and doused with vinegar. Salsa de tomate translates to tomato sauce, but really, it’s a tomato soup.
Places that sell pupusas are called pupuserias.
What makes a perfect pupusa
For the pupusa itself, it’s form, ingredients, and flavour.
The best pupusas are perfectly round and of uniform thickness. Surfaces are flat with minimal finger indentations. It should be toasted golden with some brown splotches. The dough shouldn’t be too thick like a gordita. But if chefs make it too thin, they run the risk of the filling bursting out of the shell when heated. While some may like the caramelization and burnt bits from leaked fillings, I prefer an intact pupusa. It demonstrates the skill of the chef. Almost all pupusas in this test failed on this front.
The choice of ingredients also reflect a premium pupusa. Queso fresco is more expensive than mozzarella and has a more crumbly texture and stronger taste. Loroco is not a common ingredient in Toronto and some chefs may be stingy with it. For chicharrón, chefs have latitude in the pork cuts and aromatics used. Ingredients should be well-mixed and distributed evenly within the pupusa.
Finally, flavour matters the most. The masa (corn dough) should have a warm corn fragrance. The pupusa should not be shining in oil. For pupusas de queso y loroco (cheese and loroco), the herb should meld with the cheese and add pleasant crunch. For pupusas revueltas, the ratio of meat, beans, and cheese is key. All three should be discernible but also harmonize.
I don’t put much weight to the curtido and salsa de tomate. They play second fiddle and are not something people would buy on their own. Personally, I like a mildly fermented and acidic curtido. The knife skills of the chef will be evident from the consistency and thinness of the chopped vegetables. For salsa de tomate, the best ones are fresh, filled with pulp, and have moderately complex flavours from herbs like onions and bell peppers. Bad ones are one-dimensional and taste like canned tomato soup.
Taste test method
Two pupusas were used for comparison: pupusa revuelta and pupusa de queso y loroco. They are the two most iconic pupusas and require the most skill to balance flavours.
All pupusas were takeout orders and tasted 2 to 6 hours after preparation. Texture suffers when they are not eaten fresh, so I don’t score them on this aspect.
Consistency in shape of the two pupusas were noted.
Pupusas were tasted again the next day after re-heating.
100% Salvadoreño
Cien por ciento Salvadoreño is a modest restaurant nestled in a quiet residential area. You can tell it’s family-run with children playing behind the counter.
100% Salvadoreño
The pupusas had a moderate aroma. They were crisp and mottled black.
Pupusas, curtido, and salsa de tomate from 100% Salvadoreño
Feasting on Northern, Central, and Southern Vietnamese food across Toronto
Toronto has the largest Vietnamese population in Canada. Outside Vietnam, it is also one of the cities with the largest number of people of Vietnamese descent. Waves of immigrants came in with the onset of the Vietnam War. And with them came a blossoming of the Vietnamese food scene in Toronto.
Phở (rice noodles with beef) has become synonymous with Vietnamese food in Toronto. Naturally, there is far more to Vietnamese cuisine and it’s a shame that many Toronto diners don’t venture beyond the familiar dishes. The major regional cuisines of Vietnam are divided into North, Central, and South, each differing slightly in terms of ingredients and spices. So, to inspire your next meal, here are some of the best restaurants to check out for each regional cuisine. Please don’t come to these places for just phở.
Northern Vietnamese: Phở Sơn
Northern Vietnamese food shares similarities with Southern Chinese food. Flavours tend towards sweet, salty, and mild. Phở originated here and the broth is simple and clear, letting ingredients speak for themselves. There aren’t many Northern Vietnamese restaurants in Toronto. Phở Sơn stands out for being consistently good in every dish.
Exterior of Pho Son
No tour of Northern Vietnamese cuisine is complete without bún chả Hà Nội. This is a specialty of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. It consists of rice vermicelli (bún) with a bowl of sweet-sour fish sauce (nước mắm) to dip into. Grilled pork pieces (chả) are served on the side.
Phở Sơn has the best bún chả in Toronto. It was a refreshing change from other Vietnamese restaurants to find vegetables treated with such care. Every leaf in the herb garnish was free of blemishes. Carrots and daikons were cut into flowers. It might be old-fashioned but I appreciate a restaurant that showcases its knife skills.
Bún chả Hà Nội from Phở Sơn. Quality bouquet of herbs on top. Bag of nước mắm and pickles at the back.
Expert technique was evident on the grilled pork as well. The fish sauce and soy sauce marinade seeped throughout the meat. The exterior was lightly charred and not burnt. Pork was succulent. Did I mention the accompanying vegetables were carefully carved?
The nước mắm was a refreshing counterpoint. An intense combination of sour, sweet, pungent, and spicy. It was one of the best traditional Vietnamese dishes I’ve had. 8.5/10.
Grilled pork and boiled vegetables for bún chả Hà Nội
On weekends, Phở Sơn cooks up offal and sausages. They are famous for their cháo lòng dồi (pork offal congee). I don’t see this offered at most Vietnamese restaurants, probably because Toronto diners are squeamish about eating intestines and stomachs.
Cháo lòng dồi from Phở Sơn
The congee had a style distinct from Chinese ones. It was more peppery, smokey, and oily. It was also deliciously savoury. There was an assortment of offal like large intestine, liver, and stomach. They were succulent and not overcooked. 8/10.
A head-to-head comparison of Dagu, Fudao, Shi Miaodao, and Yunshang Rice Noodle
For some reason, four specialists of crossing-the-bridge noodles have opened withing walking distance of one another in the past few years. They are centred in downtown Chinatown. I don’t quite understand the appeal of this dish but apparently the market is large enough to sustain them all. So, I decided to go on a taste test.
This review was done over the course of a year because of interruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a dish that has to be eaten on-premise for a fair assessment.
The most famous specialty from YunnAN
Crossing-the-bridge noodles (过桥米线; guoqiao mixian) gets its unusual name from a fable about a devoted wife bringing her husband these noodles. She had to cross a bridge to reach him, hence the name. Traditionally, the soup has a thick layer of oil to keep it warm. Restaurants in Toronto (and most in China) don’t bother with that because no one is doing any lengthy bridge crossings.
This dish originates from Yunnan province in Southwest China and is the representative dish. The novelty lies with diners quickly tossing raw ingredients in the boiling soup just after it is served. It’s an interactive affair. Deluxe versions can be an impressive feast. Other than that, it tastes like regular soup noodles.
I was remarkably underwhelmed by the everyday versions sold in Yunnan. It’s as sad as it looks.
Crossing-the-bridge noodles from Jian Xin Yuan (建新园), Kunming
Enterprising Chinese from outside Yunnan spiffed up this ancient dish and packaged it for the modern market. It now comes with an earthenware pot and better presented ingredients. This is the style used by Toronto restaurants.
Guoqiao mixian with original soup from Fudao Noodle House, Toronto
Discover the starchy delights of spätzle, knedlíky, halušky, and nokedli in Toronto (and finding the best)
The iconic Central European food is undoubtedly the schnitzel, a thin, breaded slab of meat. It’s filling and easy to make, which explains its popularity outside the region. Witness cotoletta (Italy) and milanesa (Argentina and Brazil).
But we are not here to talk about something that is famous enough already. Today, we go on a tour of the second-most iconic food of Central Europe: dumplings. These are the underappreciated workhorses that give the cuisine a reputation for being heavy and starchy. Not to be confused with Asian dumplings, these dumplings are bite-sized lumps of flour, potato, or egg. They are also universally bland, so the skill comes in the texture and shape.
Toronto is blessed to have full representation of the dumplings of Central Europe: Germany/Austria/Switzerland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary. (I left out Poland because their most famous dumpling, pierogi, is too divergent from the others. But if you are interested in Polish kopytka, Café Polonez is a good bet.)
One can easily go on a taste test around the city and debate which is the better variant. And that is exactly what I did.
Surprising Sri Lankan creations in the Tamil heart of Toronto
Along Markham Road near the northeastern border of Toronto lies one of the Little Indias of the city. The section between McNicoll and Steeles Avenue is the geographical centre of the largest Tamil population in Canada. It may not seem like it because of the industrial location but it sprawls out north into the residential areas of Markham and south to the more populated areas of Scarborough.
Markham Road and Steeles Avenue East, the centre of the largest Tamil community in Toronto
Markham sign at northwest corner of Markham Road and Steeles Avenue East
Tamils are an ethnic group from Tamil Nadu state in India and northern Sri Lanka. Large numbers migrated from Sri Lanka to Toronto during the civil war period from the 1980s to the early 21st century. As a result, Sri Lankan cuisine in Toronto has become synonymous with Tamil cuisine, even though Tamils are a minority group in Sri Lanka. The majority group, the Sinhalese, use slightly different spices in their cooking. By the way, it is surprisingly difficult to find a Sinhalese restaurant in Toronto. Check out Banana Leaf Catering and Take Out if you are interested.
On the other hand, Tamil restaurants are thriving in Toronto. For the most part, they have remained traditional and cheap takeout businesses. But enough time has passed since the 1980s to allow for deviations with classic recipes. Toronto is one of the few cities in the world that have the right conditions for fusion cuisine to emerge: a large Tamil population, a multicultural food landscape, and a sophisticated audience eager for new things and not adverse to paying more. The scene is still burgeoning, but here are some of the places I’ve come across in Scarborough.
Momos (मोमो) are the iconic food of Nepal. The national dish, dal bhat (curry lentils and rice), doesn’t get much love outside of Nepal. It’s not exciting and gets boring quickly. On the other hand, momos can be eaten any time of the day and there is large variety to make everyone happy. For the best variety in the world, come to Kathmandu where you can also find fusion momos.
What are momos?
If you look at a momo, it is unmistakably a Chinese dumpling. However, the filling is definitely not Chinese in taste. Momos can be found in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and India. South of the Himalayas, momos are heavily spiced and even come with curries. Momos are widely believed to have originated in Tibet and brought to Nepal by traders. From there, it spread to the rest of South Asia.
A taste test of the top pretzels in the city centre
Pretzels are quintessentially Southern German. They are so common and boring that nobody notices them in Munich, the capital of Bavaria and largest city in Southern Germany. Munich is not a foodie city, so you will get puzzled looks from locals if you ask where to find the best pretzel. A bit like asking Americans where to find the best pancakes.
While the rest of Germany calls this bread a “Brezel”, the Bavarians with their guttural accent call it “Brez’n”. These knotted bread strips are eaten by locals for breakfast and by masses of tourists in biergartens, especially during Oktoberfest. Pretzels are fussy to make because the dough has to be dipped in boiling water for a short while before baking. A good pretzel should be slightly chewy with a rich brown sheen and a lightly salted crust. Bonus points if the knotting is symmetrical and the bread has risen evenly.
Taste Test Method
Pretzels are best eaten when they are freshly baked. Most bakeries make them in the morning. So, this test was conducted in the morning.
Only bakeries in the city centre were considered. Mostly because I didn’t have time to go further and I am not that crazy about pretzels.
All bakeries were visited in the same morning between 7 am and 10 am.
The plain pretzel (Brezel natur) is used for comparison because every bakery has it.
Two tastings per pretzel: once immediately after purchasing and another 30 hours later (after re-heating). It’s easy for a fresh pretzel to taste good. It would be impressive if a day-old pretzel still remained delicious.
