Tag: Mississauga

Onam sadhya in Toronto

Partake in the largest celebratory feast in the Malayali (Kerala) calendar

This review is for 2021. Keep an eye out for the next onam sadhya on 2022-09-08.

Toronto’s burgeoning Kerala food scene explodes in one summer weekend of the year. That’s for onam sadhya, a feast celebrating the harvest festival. Restaurants shut down normal service and assemble the same onam sadhya set meals all day. Lines are long but most are in a jovial mood. It’s a fun activity to join in, even if you are not from Kerala.

Onam sadhya in Kerala

Kerala is a southern Indian state with a bountiful coastline. Its cuisine is not widespread in Toronto, so onam sadhya is a good occasion to sample them. I am not familiar with Keralan food. I was going to visit Kerala in 2020 but COVID happened. So, I can’t judge the authenticity of restaurants here.

Onam (ഓണം) is the harvest festival of the Malayali people in Kerala, falling between August and September. Sadhya (സദ്യ) means banquet. Put them together and you get the harvest feast. More than 20 items are splayed on a banana leaf. The meal is traditionally vegetarian.

Packed onam sadhya from Thanima Kerala Kitchen
Onam sadhya for takeout (Thanima Kerala Kitchen)

One of the first things you’ll notice is that the rice is not typical of the rest of India. It’s matta rice, a short-grained and plump variety. It has the texture of brown rice and is similarly coloured reddish-brown.

Rice from Thanima Kerala Kitchen
Red rice from Thanima Kerala Kitchen

Other food items in onam sadhya may include any of the following. I hope you like coconut.

  • Achaar (അച്ചാർ): Super sour pickle.
  • Avial (അവിയല്‍): Blanched, semi-dry vegetable mix with curd and grated coconut.
  • Eriserry (എരിശ്ശേരി): Pumpkin curry.
  • Olan (ഓലൻ): Ash gourd, black-eyed peas, coconut, and gigner.
  • Pachadi (പച്ചടി): Vegetables in yoghurt and coconut sauce.
  • Palada pradhaman (പാലട പ്രധമൻ): Dessert dish. Rice pudding with milk and dried fruits.
  • Pazham pradhaman (പഴം പ്രധമൻ): Dessert dish. Banana pudding with coconut milk and jaggery.
  • Pappadam: The familiar lentil cracker found throughout South Asia.
  • Payasam (പായസം): Dessert dish. Rice pudding with milk and jaggery.
  • Puli inji (പുളി ഇഞ്ചി): Thick sauce made from tamarind and ginger.
  • Pulisseri (പുളിശ്ശേരി): Sour yoghurt and coconut curry.
  • Rasam (രസം): Spicy tamarind soup. Also a Tamil mainstay.
  • Sambar (സാമ്പാർ): Spicy, thick lentil soup with vegetable chunks. Also shared with Tamil cuisine.
  • Sharkara upperi (ശർക്കര ഉപ്പേരി): Sweet banana chips in a jaggery batter, sliced in wedges.
  • Thoran (തോരൻ): Finely chopped vegetables with grated coconut and mustard seeds.
  • Upperi (ഉപ്പേരി): Banana chips, sliced crosswise.
  • Whole banana

This being Toronto, there aren’t exactly a lot of banana trees to pluck leaves from. And importing banana leaves is too expensive to feed the masses that slam Keralan restaurants for onam sadhya. So, restaurants here use a waxed, green-coloured paper instead. And in the era of COVID-19, it’s all takeout and DIY.

Onam sadhya is a big deal in Kerala, similar to a Christmas dinner. I recommend pre-ordering to avoid waiting in line for an hour or more. Nearly all Keralan restaurants here offer online ordering.

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Szechuan Noodle Bowl

Slurp-worthy Sichuanese dishes and it’s not just noodles

This humble restaurant in a nondescript plaza doesn’t even have a website, but is thriving through word-of-mouth. The draw is their authentic and tasty Sichuan food.

Sichuan cuisine is the second most prevalent Chinese cuisine in the world, after Cantonese. It’s no exception in Toronto. Many Chinese restaurants here have a token Sichuan dish or two. The cuisine’s signature ingredient is Sichuan peppercorns, which has a numbing effect on the tongue. It might be a good thing because it distracts from the burn from the thick layers of chilli oil and slew of dried chillies.

Sichuan dishes are easy to make but hard to do well, so one has to travel out of the Toronto core to get good Sichuanese food. The best places are cheap and cheerful establishments, like Szechuan Noodle Bowl.

Exterior of Szechuan Noodle Bowl
Szechuan Noodle Bowl

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Leela’s Roti and Doubles

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.

Exterior of Leela's Roti & Doubles
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.

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Samara Kitchen

An authentic slice of Indonesia in Mississauga

Why are so many good food places located in desolate industrial areas? Probably low rents. And less incentive to invest in interiors. Samara Kitchen is a classic example of tasty eateries in obscure locations. They can be confident that customers will detour to this sprawling industrial district behind Pearson airport. After all, there aren’t many Indonesian restaurants in the region. The hefty portions, large menu, and authenticity make this the top Indonesian food destination in the region.

Exterior of Samara Kitchen
Samara Kitchen

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Nannu’s Pastizzi

Crispy pastizzi and Maltese café eats

There aren’t any Maltese dinner restaurants in Toronto. The Maltese food establishments here are cafeterias that offer the national pastry, pastizzi, among other things. Nannu’s Pastizzi is the best of the lot, has the largest variety, and even has decent Maltese lunch options.

Exterior of Nannu's Pastizzi
Nannu’s Pastizzi
Counter and display cases at Nannu's Pastizzi
Counter and display cases

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Rasovara

North Indian thali fit for royalty

Rasovara is my favourite vegetarian restaurant in the Greater Toronto Area. Heck, it’s one of my favourite restaurants of any type. Vegetarian cuisine usually conjures images of organic salads and mock meats. But don’t forget that South Asians have been perfecting it for centuries. Vegetarian dishes can rival any meat dish, given the right ingredients and technique.

Rasovara is a specialist in premium thalis. That’s a pretty bold move considering that thalis are associated with cheap daily specials. Even better, their dishes hail from Rajasthan and Gujarat, which are under-represented in Toronto. They also have a smattering of Punjabi ones. I rank Rasovara highly because they manage to make every dish taste different from one another and of course, sumptuous. No mean feat considering there are 8 different curries in their thali. Each ingredient had a different cooking time and they were able to achieve perfection.

Exterior of Rasovara
Rasovara

Thali—the original Indian buffet

Thalis are multi-course meals served at once on the same platter. The arrangement is invariably rice and breads in the middle and small bowls around the perimeter for the various curries. They may be vegetarian or not. Traditionally, refills are unlimited, so they are the original all-you-can-eat meal.

Thalis are an affordable way to sample a bit of everything. Items in a thali change often, on the whims of the chef. Kind of like a tasting menu for the masses. But cafeteria quality. I have eaten dozens of thalis across India and none of them were memorable. It’s difficult to find a premium version of something that is associated with a lunch special. Rasovara bucks the trend.

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Monosaba

The perfect mandi

There are less than 10 Yemeni restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area. All of them serve mandi. It goes to show what the most popular export of that nation is. While none of them cook it in the traditional way (in an underground pit), they are all still pretty tasty. Of these restaurants, Monasaba is by far the best in every aspect.

Exterior of Monasaba
Monasaba

Mandi—A celebratory rice feast

Mandi (مندي‎) is a rice dish cooked with meat stock and spices reminiscent of North India. While the rice cooks, meat is placed on top of it so that its juices can seep down. It reminds me of Indian biryani and that is not coincidental. Yemen had strong historical trade links with India. Traditionally, mandi is served during feasts since it is laborious to prepare. It’s doesn’t make sense to cook a small portion after going through the hassle of setting up an underground oven. So, Yemenis use a large vat that can feed multiple families.

Today, mandi can be found around the Arabian peninsula. In Dubai, it has become a food fad with food court stalls and fancy restaurants popping up with their own renditions. Since visiting Yemen and Saudi Arabia is out of the question for most foreigners, Dubai is the most accessible place to try mandi. And if you can’t travel to the Middle East, Monasaba in Mississauga has an excellent version as well.

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The Central European dumplings of 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.

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Godavari

This restaurant closed in Autumn 2020. Thanks for the memories!

Affordable Andhra cuisine in a lavish setting

The evolution of South Indian restaurants in non-Asian cities usually starts with pan-Indian eateries serving stereotypical food (think butter chicken and biryani). Then, it branches out to general South Indian restaurants serving dosas and idlis. The first regional specialization to emerge is Tamil cuisine. The majority of cities never get past this stage. If there is enough diner demand and sophistication, Keralan restaurants will appear next. Andhra and Telugu restaurants are rare, with the exception of Hyderabadi biryani shops. Only a few cities outside of India and the Middle East get specialists in the least-known South Indian cuisine, Karnataka.

That’s why I was excited to try Godavari, one of only two Andhra restaurants in the Toronto region. Although they don’t have the full gamut of Andhra dishes (like avakaya, a mango pickle), they offer some regional specialties that can’t be found elsewhere in Canada. Andhra cuisine is one of the spiciest in India. Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the spice levels at Godavari because I did not order any spicy dishes for this visit.

Exterior of Godavari
Exterior of Godavari. Looks uninspired.
Reception hall at Godavari
Reception hall. A complete change in atmosphere from the outside.

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