A Taste of Latin America in Toronto
This past Saturday I went to Latin America, without stepping outside of Toronto. Tucked in between Chinatown and the trendy Little Italy is Kensington Market, one of Toronto’s many ethnic neighbourhoods. According to the official site the original settlers in the area were from the British Isles, later on it was the centre of the Jewish community, and after the war various European communities, predominantly Portuguese, settled here. Today this is the place to go when you crave a flavour for Latin America but it’s too long to wait until your next trip south.
We started our culinary tour with a taste of pupusas, fried plantains and yuca frita in a Salvadorean food shop that has a grill at the back and provides stools at the front for casual diners like us. Pupusas are small corn tortillas cooked with different stuffings, ours were with beans and cheese, and served with a spicy sauce and salad on top. It is the Central American version of the Venezuelan arepa. This was also the first time I tasted fried plantains with melted cheese on top, a Salvadorean tradition, I gather. This delicious treat alone will keep me coming back. From here we stopped at the shop next door for an Inca Kola, the national soft drink of Peru, and moved on to Jumbo Empanadas (photo here), a Chilean establishment that has been serving massive empanadas of chicken, beef or veggies and humitas for 10 years. Jumbo is a must do in this market and one of the few stops that has proper tables with chairs as a sit down option. Next stop was what has to be the tiniest coffee shop in the city, Luis Coffee Shop at Agusta and Baldwin. You squeeze your way in to grab a coffee which you can drink on the benches outside while watching the eclectic crowd walk by.
Kensington Market is where we used to seek out cheap eats and second hand leather jackets in my university days. This neighbourhood’s proximity to the downtown core has recently secured its ‘up and coming’ classification, funky shops and restaurants already starting to pop up next to meat markets, cheese shops and fruit vendors. Luckily the prices haven’t gone up market yet. A whole $12 was spent getting a taste of Latin America on a Saturday morning.
This article was posted by Veronica Montero.
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