Nestled in an industrial plaza near the Golden Mile is a little stall called Minerva Tiffins. It used to be the only tenant in the desolate food court for a long time. Today, it’s joined by three or four others but make no mistake, Minerva Tiffins is single-handedly running the show here. On the occasions I’ve visited, all the diners went straight for Minerva.
Minerva Tiffins
Undoubtedly, word-of-mouth and some media coverage helped, but the reason for its sustained success is its incredibly fresh-tasting South Indian food. Specifically, Andhra snacks. It’s grown so much that it’s moving to a proper restaurant of its own.
As the only proper Moroccan restaurant in Toronto, Morocco House does a valiant job in offering the renowned dishes of that country. It’s strange that there aren’t more Moroccan restaurants. It’s fun to eat off a tagine and there can be so many delicious preparations of couscous that is not just a salad afterthought.
Considering the large Ukrainian population in Toronto, there is a surprising lack of standout Ukrainian restaurants. Barrel House Korchma easily vaulted to the top spot when it opened last year. The ambience and cookery certainly merits this.
Barrel House Korchma
The food
What I like about Barrel House Korchma is that it goes beyond the common Eastern European fare of cabbage rolls, vareniki (dumplings), and sausages. But if you are looking for those, Barrel House Korchma does them well.
Venerable institution for simply great Southern BBQ
Memphis BBQ and its sibling Big Bone BBQ have been around for decades. They brought BBQ to the Toronto region before (most) people could tell the difference between the regional styles of Southern BBQ. Since then, more BBQ outlets have opened up with different styles and price points. Even so, Memphis BBQ remains one of the few restaurants that serve Memphis-style BBQ.
Memphis BBQ
Memphis-style BBQ is all about the pork. The sauce is moderately thick and sweet and can either be incorporated during cooking or omitted entirely. Wet and dry preparations are equally popular. Memphis BBQ (the restaurant) does the wet style.
Excellence that goes much more beyond roti and doubles
Toronto has a thriving Trinidadian food scene, so it’s hard to pick favourites. Leela’s Roti & Doubles should be in the top 3, given its breadth and quality of its offerings. There are few places where one can reliably get specialties such as saheena or bake and shark.
Leela’s Roti & Doubles
The original location is in Mississauga, close to Square One. They’ve opened up a second branch in Scarborough in 2020. Being a foodie, of course I visited the flagship location for this review.
Guatemalan cuisine isn’t well-known. It’s vaguely Mexican and doesn’t have many distinctive dishes compared to its neighbouring countries. It doesn’t help that there aren’t many Guatemalan restaurants outside of Guatemala. In Toronto, there’s just one: El Quetzal Panaderia y Restaurante.
El Quetzal Bakery
Also known as El Quetzal Bakery in English, this tiny establishment sells snacks and imported goods from Guatemala and the region.
Joummar is probably the only restaurant of its kind for hundreds of kilometers: an upper-tier Iraqi restaurant. The setting is elegant and more importantly, the food is bountiful and tasty.
Vegan street food as good as (or better) than Bombay
Mumbai is known for its street foods. Until recent years, good renditions of them were hard to come by in Toronto. It was difficult to find a Bombay restaurant in the first place. Today, there are more choices available and Bombay Bakers is the best I know of for quality and cost. I’m frankly amazed at how they can keep prices competitive with India.
Bombay Bakers
The foods of Mumbai (Bombay)
For less worldly readers, Bombay is the old colonial name for Mumbai, the financial and movie capital of India. Other than its snacks, it doesn’t have a distinctive cuisine, taking its cue from neighbouring regions like inland Maharashtra, the Konkan coast, and Gujarat state. Endemic to the area is the endangered Parsi cuisine, brought over by Persian immigrants a thousand years ago and adapted to local tastes.
While Parsi food is rare in Toronto, these Mumbai street snacks are easy to find. Nearly all are vegan.
Bhel puri: Savoury mix of rice puffs, fried bits, boiled potato cubes, and chutneys.
Falooda: Rose syrup drink that is found from Iran to Indonesia. The one in Mumbai comes with layers of vermicelli jelly, basil seeds, and a scoop of ice cream.
Pani puri: Crisp shells filled with chickpeas and doused in sauces.
Papdi chaat: Savoury mix of round crackers, fried bits, yoghurt, and chutneys.
Pav bhaji: Bread rolls with a dip of mashed curry vegetables.
Vada pav: Deep-fried potato patty sandwiched in a bread roll and smeared with chutneys.
These street foods are harder to find.
Bombay Sandwich: Grilled sandwich with chutney spread. Found at Bombay Bakers.
Frankie: Round flatbread that is fried, rolled into a tube, and stuffed with various fillings. Bombay Snack Bar and sibling Bombay Frankie have them. So does Bharuchi’s.
Keema Pav: Bread rolls with a dip of curried minced meat. Bombay Snack Bar is the closest place to downtown Toronto that has this.
Havana is not the first place one would think of for good food. Still, it’s the best culinary destination in the whole of Cuba and the best opportunity to sample traditional cooking. Spoilers: it’s mostly pork, beans, plantains, and yucca.
Standards are comparable to mid-range restaurants in Western Europe…provided one sticks to the tourist restaurants and eschews resort food. Normally, I avoid tourist restaurants but I haven’t come across a locally-oriented restaurant in Havana that’s worth recommending. Choice ingredients and skillful technique are unfortunately priced out of range for the vast majority of Cubans.
Havana. Modern, brutalist, and art deco mingle.
I assume that you’re not planning to go to Cuba to eat French, Italian, Spanish, or American food, so I’ve focused on the unique Havana experiences in this article.
The vicissitudes of eating out in Cuba
Havana’s culinary scene has gone through ups and downs. It was mostly forgotten by the world after the Cuban revolution in 1959. Restaurants became state-run. It became a challenge to find somewhere that would accept foreigners, let alone with good food.
When Cuba opened up for tourism in the 1990s during the “special period” (período especial; tough economic times), the government allowed private enterprise in the form of paladares: family-run restaurants out of their own homes. That marked the renaissance of Cuban dining. Today, the range, quality, and ambience of paladares exceeds that of government-run food establishments. They are indistinguishable from regular restaurants elsewhere in the world, other than the discreet home residence beyond the kitchen.
The second challenge to deal with is the availability of ingredients. Especially imported ones that upscale restaurants advertise like olive oil and squid ink. The US trade embargo has made it difficult to secure a consistent and affordable supply chain. Tourists complain of how often most items on the menu are not available. I say Cuban chefs have to improvise like nowhere else in the world in the face of unstable supply issues. They have to be creative about substitutions and figuring out how to maximize the ingredients they have on hand.
A more recent challenge affects tourists as much as Cubans: currency. Since 2021, Cuba’s inflation rate has run amok at 70%. Before 2021, Cuba had two currencies: peso (CUP) and convertible peso (CUC). 1 CUC is exactly 1 US dollar and it was what (most) tourists used and restaurant menus were priced with. Now, there is just CUP, whose value continues to plummet against global currencies each day. Virtually all prices are quoted in CUP now and tourists have to use them for everyday purchases (with some exceptions). Until the currency stabilizes, you’re better off exchanging for pesos in the black market than at the bank or ATM. Otherwise, you’ll be wondering why you just paid 8.00 € for a slice of mediocre pizza. The street rate is two to three times better than the official one.
A head-to-head comparison of the ultimate beef extravaganza
Bò 7 món (literally 7 courses of beef) doesn’t come up often in Vietnamese menus. It’s a splurge and it takes a lot of kitchen prep work. I only know of 5 specialists in Toronto in the last decade. Only 2 remain today: Bo 7 Mon Restaurant and Phở Cửu Long Miền Tây. If there are other good ones, please let me know!
Since there are so few contenders, it’s easy to do a head-to-head battle to determine who makes the best bò 7 món.
What goes in a bò 7 món
Bò 7 món is associated with Southern Vietnam, which is more affluent than the rest of the country. In fact, the oldest specialist in Vietnam, Au Pagolac, is located in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). There isn’t a prescription about what the 7 courses are, but there is usually one sausage dish, a beef hot pot (bò nhúng dấm), and beef congee (cháo bò).
The contenders
Bo 7 Mon Restaurant
The name says it all. It’s a weird name if you think about it, like a burger restaurant naming themselves “Burger Restaurant”. Although they can’t trademark the name, it does make it clear what they sell.
Bo 7 Mon Restaurant
This restaurant is in a plaza dominated by Vietnamese restaurants. They’re all better than average and have carved out their own niche to avoid direct competition. Although Bo 7 Mon Restaurant’s specialty is obvious, they also have regular noodles and rice meals for those who want something simpler.
Dining area of Bo 7 Mon Restaurant
Phở Cửu Long Miền Tây
This restaurant sits at a junction that has a cluster of Vietnamese restaurants. Đà Nẵng Restaurant is a few minutes walk away and also has bò 7 món, though they are better known for their Central Vietnamese dishes.
