The long stretch of Danforth Avenue has many personalities when it comes to food. As you venture east, you’ll navigate through micro pockets of Latin American, west and east African, and Indian foodstuffs.
One of the newest neighbourhoods to emerge is Banglatown — a very short strip of the Danforth, from Victoria Park Avenue to just east of Dawes Road that has grown in recent years and has become home to a number of Bangladeshi businesses.
One of the first food spots to open here actually came by way of a video shop, one of the area’s earliest Bangladeshi-owned businesses. That video shop, Priyangam, was opened in 1995 by Helen Alam and Alam Shamsul Syed, who were originally from Dhaka and moved to Canada from Norway with their toddler son, Rafee Syed.
“The video shop became a sort of meeting point for newcomer Bengali people that were looking to reconnect with their culture through movies,” said Rafee Syed. Shortly thereafter a snack aisle was added with Alam Syed serving up meat- and veggie-filled samosas and an assortment of Bangladeshi sweets like chom chom and gulab jamun.
In 2004, the family decided to convert the store into a small restaurant, naming it Ghoroaa, the Bengali word for home. Being one of the first Bangladeshi restaurants in the city, it quickly garnered a following with a growing community in Crescent Town.
“Then came the grocery store that opened next door, and a Bangladeshi textile business. Over the years it has grown significantly,” said Rafee Syed.
During the day, this cultural touchpoint on the Danforth may not seem so obvious. If you’re walking, you may spot a few brightly painted signs with Bengali text. But when the sun sets, the neighbourhood comes alive with friends and families gathering around their favourite Bangladeshi snack shop or restaurant. You’ll see some men dressed up in sequin dinner jackets and women wearing shalwar kameez.
There’s music out on the streets, with makeshift patios set up in parking lots. There’s a sense of community here that reminds me of what Little India was like decades ago.
Here are three spots you should check out when visiting Banglatown.
Ghoroaa Restaurant
(2994 Danforth Ave.)
Rafee Syed, who is now in his 20s, helps manage his parents’ restaurant. Alam Syed is still a central figure in this cornerstone establishment known for its traditional homestyle take on Bangladeshi cuisine.
“My mom is a self-taught cook and many of the dishes she serves here are typical of how you would eat in a Bangladeshi home,” said Rafee Syed.
While there’s some seating at Ghoroaa, the restaurant is better known for takeout. The most popular items here are the khichuri dishes, rice and daal cooked biryani style with an assortment of spices and protein like chicken or beef. The goat version is a crowd-pleaser with tender morsels of bone-in meat mixed with rice and daal.
There is one dish that is considered essential at the restaurant.
“If you’re visiting Ghoroaa for the first time, it has to be the fish,” said Rafee Syed. The Brahmaputra river is one of the world’s largest transboundary rivers, traversing through Tibet, Bangladesh and India, so seafood is central to many regional styles of Bangladeshi cooking.
At Ghoroaa, the most popular dish is the rice with fish combo. Rohu, also known as Carpo, is lightly fried to crisp up its skin, before it is cooked in a gravy of tomatoes, onions and green chili peppers. The fish is served with rice topped with daal — red lentils cooked with bay leaves and coriander.
There’s wonderful contrast between the tender flesh of the fish, slightly undercooked, complemented by the slightly crispy skin, and the bold heat from the gravy. The heat is dialed up in all the sauces in Banglatown.
“I think what people love about the fish curry is that every time it is made, the gravy can taste slightly different. It depends on who is in the kitchen,” said Rafee Syed, noting that the restaurant employs a lot of newcomers who bring their own regional take to various dishes.
Dhaka Kebab
(3040 Danforth Ave.)
One of the newest restaurants to open on the strip is Dhaka Kebab, which has an expansive menu that highlights various regional dishes of Bangladesh as well as popular Indian plates.
During weekend nights, chairs are set up for a makeshift patio in the parking lot with lineups that go long into the night. Owner Sarkar Rafique Ahmed opened the restaurant in October 2020. It is one of the few places on the strip that can accommodate groups for dine-in.
“I’ve been a chef for over 20 years and I’ve always wanted to open a Bangladeshi restaurant here in this neighbourhood,” said Ahmed, who arrived from Dhaka in 2004 and has lived in Crescent Town ever since. He knew he wanted to get into the restaurant business and staying in the community was an obvious choice. “I have witnessed our people grow together here. There is nowhere else my restaurant would be this successful,” said Ahmed.
A revolving menu takes guests through breakfast, lunch and dinner dishes. For breakfast, the most popular dish is the traditional thali-style assortment of vegetables, stewed and served with paratha. “There’s always a daal, some potatoes and carrots, a sampling of different types of vegetables. Each bite should be different,” said Ahmed. A snack counter to the side has Bangladeshi favourites like vegetable and spiced-beef samosas, chicken rolls and patties.
For lunch, the biryanis run the show, spiced rice cooked Indian-style with vegetables and protein. The chicken biryani sells out first. There’s also an assortment of vegetable and meat curries you can order à la carte. Try the shrimp and potatoes, cooked in a milky gravy with subtle hints of spice that make it a great complement to the house-made rotis.
For dinner, you’ll see groups huddled around a gamut of Dhaka’s offerings: bowls of rice and biryani next to small bowls of mutton curry and karahi chicken — a fiery dish cooked with ample chilies, onions and tomatoes. “Our dishes tend to be on the spicier side,” said Ahmed.
Adi Bikrampur Sweets and Fast Food
(3000 Danforth Ave.)
Husband and wife team, Shadhan Ghosh and Ruma Paul, run a cubicle-sized sweet shop in Banglatown, small enough that it can only fit two people inside.
“This used to be a very popular biryani stand. When the space came available in 2019, we had to realize our dreams,” said Ghosh. Prior to opening the shop, the couple ran a pop-up, making Bangladeshi sweets in their commissary space in Scarborough and catering to groups and for functions.
There are a number of shops making Bangladeshi sweets in Banglatown, but what sets Adi Bikrampur apart is the attention to detail and small-batch cooking.
There are only a few items on the menu, popular sweets such as gulab jamun, rashgulla and chom choms. Paul immediately greets each guest with a fresh cup of chai. “Chai and my desserts are the best way to end a meal, or even a snack,” said Paul.
Paul and Ghosh’s most popular item is the chom choms, cylindrical-shaped sweets made with milk solids, semolina and sugar.
Typically when these sweets are made it is with store-bought milk solids. Here, the couple make their own milk solids, curdling boiled batches of milk with vinegar before cooking it down with semolina and dunking it in a sugar syrup.
The gulab jamun also receives similar treatment, with house-made milk solids turned into golf-ball sized morsels and fried gently until golden brown, and then soaked in a sugar syrup.
Due to the shop’s limited space — one that can barely fit a microcar — Ghosh regularly delivers fresh batches of gulab jamun and chom choms to the shop that he makes in small batches at their commissary kitchen on Kingston Road.
Suresh Doss is a Toronto-based food writer and food tour guide. He is a freelance contributor to the Star. Reach him via email: [email protected]
SHARE:
Author
