Is this the hottest food in Toronto?
I bite into a bronzed dumpling of a shrimp pakora and kaboom! the chilis race through my system. Automatically I reach for water, but no, now I remember don’t do that, water simply spreads and intensifies the fire… Have to wait it out… I’m sure my blood pressure’s rising.
I look around the gaudy extravaganza of a room, pink walls, Chinese pictures, paper lanterns, plastic flowers and seajungle scapes on the tables and nobody else seems affected. But then I’m at Federick, the Chinese –Indian place in Scarborough where only the chili-addicted dare to go. And there are lots of them. When we arrive on a sub zero night, the lineup for takeway stretches out into the stripmall on Ellesmere – between Markham and McCowan.
David our waiter has warned us. “Sure you want it spicy?” Of course, says Big Chili who made his bones with Szechuan, Harissa, Texas Fire Alarm Chili, Southeastern Sambals. The chili is yang – extreme machismo food. Bring it all on is his ‘tude. Uh uh. The Hakka blast is relentless.
Hakka? Asks Big Chili as beads of sweat break out on his forehead. Yes Hakka. The Hakkas are part of the great Chinese diaspora (former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson is a Hakka so is Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore) which has taken Chinese food around the world, reinventing it as they do so. (Susur Lee’s manipulation of French techniques with Chinese ingredients is a Toronto example.)
In the 1700s, the Hakkas put down roots in Kolkatta (Calcutta) quickly adapting their food to local tastes and spices, and then started spreading out.
This is where Federick comes in. Simon, a Haka, the spelling he prefers, who owns the Scarborough restaurant, comes from Mumbai and he explains he took the name from a restaurant in his hometown. Why Federick? The restaurant is now gone but it may have been named (as an existing restaurant is) for the architect Frederick William Stevens, a local hero who designed Mumbai’s amazing phantasmagorical gothic railroad station.
Back to food. The portions are huge. I’m sure it’s a pound of Haka Chow Mein $7 being placed before us - slim little fiery noodles tossed with shrimp and chicken: Kan Shue Green Beans $6.50 are fried and piquant. Now we consider fermented bean curd, a traditional Hakka favourite. Which dish is the most typical, we ask David. He replies “Everything is Hakka.” We settle for home style bean curd $6.50, fine chewy bean curd with those meaty round black mushrooms, carrots, onions, beans in a glutinous sauce. Without chilis, this dish would be good enough but bland. What the Hakkas have done is simply make traditional dishes and fired them up. Looking over the extensive menu, we wonder whether Manchurian Beef, Frederick Delicious Garlic chicken, Singapore Fried Rice, Szechuan Shrimp will taste more or less the same – of chilis.
Chili chicken $11.50 is Federick’s poster dish, chunks of battered chicken on and off the bone in a viscous garlicky, soy sauce spiked with chilis to the max. We have a mixed opinion on this. I didn’t expect it to have the consistency of a sweet and sour dish while Big Chili objects to the battering – makes the chicken heavy. One thing we agree on is the heat. We need the white rice.
Looking around, we realize we have hardly dented the mounds of food. Other patrons are going home with white plastic doggie bags. Big Chili cries Uncle, but I take home the shrimp pakoras $10.75. They heat up wonderfully the next day and I eat them with those small sweet Mexican tomatoes. I find I want more almost immediately. I’m addicted.
*and 1/2 Federick, 1920 Ellesmere, 416-439-9234. Four dishes $45 GREAT Yums for bucks.
**Tips from Winterlicious which ended last week. These dishes are also on the restaurants’ regular menus.
Hemispheres does a marvelous tossed salad of mango, papaya and avocado with fresh herbs, pistachios and sesame vinaigrette. $10
Hemispheres Restaurant and bistro at Metropolitan Hotel 110 Chestnut St 416-599.8000
Croque Monsieur Parisien at Didier, best in the city, a rosemary-smoked ham and comte cheese in a sandwich lightly sautéed in butter with a fresh green bean salad. $15
Didier 1496 Yonge St 416-925-8588
A superb melding of flavour – a roasted pear, shaved fennel, watercress, frisee, walnuts, stilton cheese, mustard dressing $12 at Pangaea.
Pangaea 1221 Bay St 416-920 2323
