Locals Welcome Season 1 Episode 2

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Transcript

00:00Toronto's airport is a gateway to food destinations around the world.

00:17But when I'm craving South Asian cuisine, some of the best food lives in the streets around the airport.

00:23You don't even need a boarding pass.

00:27I'm Suresh Das. I've spent my career writing about the local favourites that make Canada's food scene truly unique.

00:39I believe every bite tells a story. Now, I want to share those stories with you.

00:50The city of Toronto, my home, is one of the most multicultural in the world.

00:56Just west of downtown sits Mississauga, home to Pearson International Airport.

01:04We're minutes from the airport.

01:06You have this really interesting mix of all these industrial plazas.

01:11Nestled in between those industrial drags, you have some of the best South Asian cuisine.

01:18When I immigrated here from Sri Lanka with my parents, there weren't many South Asian restaurants in this area.

01:30But as more immigrants arrived, many got jobs at the airport and settled nearby.

01:36And it's become one of my favourite places for South Asian cuisine.

01:45Today, I'm picking up a close friend who's been dying to do a tour of South Asian food spots.

01:50Hey, buddy. Welcome to Mississauga. Get in, get in. Good to see you.

01:56You might know this guy.

01:59It's Canadian chef, award-winning actor from The Bear, and my friend, Maddie Matheson.

02:08You can see that it's actually hot.

02:09You know, we've known each other like, what, 15 years?

02:14I followed your career from, you know, like, from the very beginning, so...

02:17Just a head cook, you know?

02:19I wouldn't say that.

02:20I wouldn't say that either.

02:21You're an amazing cook.

02:22I'm an amazing cook.

02:24I want to open your stomach and your taste buds.

02:27Open my stomach and my taste buds, okay.

02:29With something that I don't think you've had before.

02:31What's happening?

02:32What's happening?

02:33So this place we're going to, it's important in the community because a lot of airport workers go here.

02:39Okay.

02:40And it kind of holds you off until dinner.

02:42It's like a little jammer, a little...

02:43It's a little jammer.

02:44It's an all-you-can-eat place, so...

02:46All-you-can-eat jammers that are supposed to tie you over.

02:48Yes.

02:49So it's a meal.

02:50Well, you can make it a meal.

02:51It's a meal before we go get the meal.

02:53Let's do this.

02:54Okay.

02:55Shadhat has been here for over a decade, and their roadside stall is a regular stop for locals who want a quick snack.

03:06So we're trying pani puri today.

03:08Right.

03:09Pani means water.

03:10Puri means the cracker of the bread.

03:13Watch how she does it.

03:16Seasoned potato is tucked into a fried hollow cracker and dressed with a sweet and sour tamarind chutney.

03:23Then, a ladling of one of five flavored waters.

03:27That's your pani puri.

03:29I'm gonna toast you.

03:31Here you go.

03:32Pani puri.

03:36Mm-hmm.

03:37They're good.

03:38They're really refreshing.

03:40Yeah.

03:41Mint, turmeric, coriander, I think.

03:44Wow.

03:45And the tamarind, the tamarind flavor comes out, right?

03:46Yeah, yeah.

03:47Yeah.

03:48Let's have another one.

03:49You want the garlic one?

03:50Yeah.

03:51I want all of them.

03:52You find it all over India, from north to south India.

03:55This is street food, right?

03:56Like, you eat it on the street.

03:57You're arguing about cricket.

03:58You're arguing about your favorite Bollywood movie.

04:00You're eating pani puri.

04:02Now my palate, the heat is coming.

04:04Yeah.

04:05The flavors, all the beautiful acid, the potato, the crunch.

04:09I'm opened up.

04:11Nice.

04:12I've opened up.

04:13Everything you said has came to, you know, it's came to light.

04:16Nice.

04:17Nice.

04:18I'm seeing it.

04:24Now that his palate's open, I want Maddie to taste some flavors we don't often find outside

04:29of India.

04:30This is a family-run restaurant that I think has some of the best Kerala cuisine I've ever

04:34had.

04:35Behind it is chef and owner Nisha Kokai.

04:39I am from Kerala.

04:40It's a south part of India.

04:43South Indian and North Indian.

04:46The flavor-wise, it's totally different.

04:49Kerala, there is lots of spices.

04:54And we have lots of coconut.

04:56That's the main ingredients for our food.

05:02We're here.

05:03We're here.

05:04I'm so happy that I have you at Kerala Curry House.

05:07It'll be nice to enjoy it together, you know?

05:09Yeah.

05:12Whoa.

05:13Okay.

05:14Whoa.

05:15Like, beautiful.

05:16Oh, we're going.

05:17Oh my goodness, there's more.

05:18Yeah.

05:19Woo.

05:20Good.

05:21Good.

05:22I was worried.

05:23I was worried we didn't have enough.

05:24Thank you for coming.

05:25How are you doing?

05:26Good, good.

05:27What do we got here?

05:28This one for Chati Chora.

05:30Chati means clay pot.

05:32Right.

05:33Okay.

05:34Chora means the rice.

05:35The vegetable curries, chicken, egg, fish.

05:41Almost 16 to 18 items.

05:4418 items in this bowl?

05:46Yes, yes.

05:53The one thing that, like, I have to say is when you're here, we're going to eat with our fingers.

05:58Yes.

05:59Good.

06:00I'm down.

06:01How I like to eat it is pluck the rice, pluck different things.

06:03Yeah.

06:04And then...

06:05Yeah.

06:06Yeah.

06:07Mmm.

06:08Oh my goodness.

06:09So what do we do with these?

06:10Just like slurp on them?

06:11Everyone has a different style.

06:12What my dad would probably pour, my mom would probably dip.

06:15Yeah.

06:18So this is like a classic Kerala dish.

06:21I want to say it goes back probably at least 50 years.

06:24Yeah.

06:25Um, this is one of the only restaurants that makes this.

06:28Yeah.

06:29You can't find this in Toronto.

06:30This is so fire.

06:31Yeah.

06:32This is like amazing.

06:33Yeah.

06:34While we are completely distracted by the ensemble of tastes and flavors, Nisha heads back into

06:38the kitchen to compose the house favorite.

06:42Yeah.

06:43Ginger, garlic, chili, onion.

06:52Kitty Parotas.

06:54That's the main dish.

06:58It's really popular here in Kerala.

07:00This is for the beef curry with the masala.

07:03Coriander powder, chili powder, turmeric, garam masala.

07:08All the spices must be going there.

07:18We had to start from nothing, right?

07:21From nothing.

07:23Actually, that time there is no Kerala food or anything here.

07:29From the morning to the night, I will be here.

07:33I generally have two kids.

07:36They're born here.

07:38After two weeks, I came to work.

07:40And they're raised in here.

07:43Nisha's food brought more than just flavor from Kerala.

07:47It created a place for the community.

07:50You know, the customers, they are from everywhere.

07:54Old people coming.

07:56They like our food.

07:59They come for essentials like this house-made paratha.

08:02Flatbread, enriched with generous amounts of butter that is toasted on a griddle until dotted with leopard spots.

08:09But here, it's being prepared for the Kiri Paratha.

08:12So it's slapped to break it up and create these craggly corners and crevices for the masala to seep into.

08:18And then it's all brought together.

08:23Paratha layered with a mountain of masala beef, chilies and vegetables, and even more paratha.

08:33And then it's neatly tucked into a banana leaf and steamed.

08:36Here it is.

08:41There you go.

08:42Yeah.

08:43See this?

08:44Oh, yeah. Look at that.

08:45This is like the best thing in the world.

08:46I feel like this is like meant to be shared between two people, right?

08:49Yeah.

08:50And you want hands crossing each other.

08:51You want hands into it.

08:52It's incredible.

08:53Mm.

08:54Mm.

08:55It's incredible.

08:56I don't know if I'm like a sucker for soft.

08:58You know, resistance.

08:59The world is tough enough.

09:01Mm.

09:02You know?

09:03Having food like this.

09:04Oh, that's interesting.

09:06I bit into a chili.

09:07Woo!

09:08Yeah.

09:09They'll get you.

09:10Your food is absolutely beautiful.

09:12Yeah, thank you so much.

09:13Toronto is so massive.

09:15There's, you know, how many times can you drive past a plaza like this?

09:19I would never think to stop, but this is the one that has like food that is just so delicate

09:24and so beautiful and so true to who you are.

09:26And it's really a beautiful experience.

09:28Yeah.

09:29Thank you so much.

09:31When you're off camera, you are such a different person.

09:34You're so tender and warm and lovely.

09:37I feel like people don't see that side of you because they see, you know, like when you're on the show.

09:41Oh, thank you.

09:42You know, it's nice to do something like this where I'm like, I can just chill.

09:45Right, right, right.

09:46You know?

09:47When we first moved here, I saw kids at school eating spaghetti.

10:03And I tried to explain it to my mom.

10:05She tried to make her own version of it using South Asian spices and ketchup.

10:10It's clearly not Italian.

10:12But my mom's ketchup pasta is my own personal nostalgia and something I crave to this day.

10:19And that brings us to why we're going to Rick's Good Eats because he is doing something very unique in this city.

10:27There is this bridge between past, present and future.

10:31And Rick would identify his food as Punjabi-Canadian.

10:38Chili, garlic, ginger.

10:40Hey!

10:41Hi!

10:42What's up?

10:44You're in gifts and all that?

10:46Good to see you, man.

10:47Good to see you.

10:48Mama Manjit.

10:49Oh, thank you.

10:50Aw, it's so nice to see you again.

10:51Same here.

10:52Long time.

10:53I brought something for you.

10:54Oh, you brought bagels for me?

10:55I brought this for you.

10:56Oh, my goodness.

10:57They're in season right now.

10:58They're perfumey, right?

10:59You can smell them even without touching it.

11:01You can smell it.

11:02It reminds India.

11:03Yeah.

11:04Like so many new entrepreneurs, Rick Matharu relies on his family, especially his mom, Manjit.

11:09What was he like growing up as a kid?

11:11Was he, like, was he into food?

11:12Oh, my God.

11:13He was very fussy.

11:17Growing up, I didn't always love eating Indian food.

11:21It was kind of like when I got introduced to comfort food.

11:25I was like, I want burgers, pizzas, pastas.

11:29And then my mom was like, okay, you can't eat that every single day.

11:31So she then started incorporating North American flavors into Punjabi cooking.

11:36And that's kind of how my palate developed.

11:38I started experimenting in the kitchen at a very young age.

11:46I'm a mad scientist in my kitchen.

11:48That's what I do.

11:49You know, this is my lab.

11:51People know what a cheeseburger is.

11:53People know what a lasagna is.

11:55But now we're adding that Punjabi-style kind of twist to it.

12:02Mama Manjit is our spice queen.

12:04She makes all our spices from scratch.

12:07I think the magic behind Punjabi flavors, it's this.

12:12It's ta.

12:13You know, ta means this is your spoon.

12:15And there's no measurements.

12:16You're just cooking with your heart.

12:19It's ta this, a little bit of that.

12:21We're big people.

12:23So we have to have big flavors.

12:25And that's what it's all about.

12:29I opened up my restaurant at 34.

12:31Wow.

12:32I had won a competition on TV, recipe to riches.

12:36And that gave me all the limelight.

12:39Like it was just like all eyes were on me.

12:41The butter chicken lasagna.

12:42The butter chicken lasagna.

12:43That's what made it all happen.

12:44Pasta with a Punjabi twist.

12:46A dish that no one heard of.

12:48What is this?

12:49So this is our top salad, brother.

12:50This is our tandoori fried chicken burger.

12:54Marinated for 24 hours.

12:57And then breaded, fried, double fried with our ting tang sauce.

13:03Little tingy, little tangy.

13:05Kind of like a masala barbecue.

13:07And then the breading, we've got about 14 different spices in there.

13:10But then the achari mayo really kind of mellows it out.

13:14It looks so saucy.

13:16Yeah.

13:17Yeah, it's not beard friendly.

13:20Oh my goodness.

13:21You're right that it's messy.

13:22I mean, I don't have a beard like you do.

13:24But the Messi's burgers are the best burgers.

13:26Yeah.

13:27In my opinion.

13:28Yeah.

13:29Right?

13:30How long did it take you to perfect this?

13:31Because it's so tender, so juicy.

13:33But the spices are also really singing too.

13:36This took me years, to be honest, up till today.

13:40So it's never perfected.

13:42This is Rick's version of my mom's ketchup pasta.

13:45Bringing different foods that are familiar together

13:47to make something uniquely his own.

13:50There's two ways of cooking this food.

13:52You can either take two cultures and smash them together.

13:54That'll never work.

13:58It has to be authentic.

14:00Because you've got to pay homage to both cultures.

14:01You've got to give respect to both cultures.

14:03Or like for an example, my jerk chicken samosas.

14:06Oh, jerk chicken samosas.

14:11We stay true to the jerk chicken,

14:14but we do a samosa pastry the way that we do it.

14:18It's not just South Asians that are loving it.

14:20Everyone's loving it.

14:21Because it's relatable.

14:22Yeah, when I come in here, it's a kaleidoscope of people.

14:24Yeah.

14:25Right?

14:26Which is beautiful.

14:27Which is wonderful to see.

14:28You know, I always ask myself this question,

14:39because we're evolving with migration.

14:42What is Canadian food anyway?

14:43You ask people of different generations,

14:45and they'll all give you a different answer.

14:47I think it was poutine,

14:49and then it became the Jamaican patty,

14:51but right now it's the samosa.

14:53Samosas are affordable, mostly vegetarian,

14:56and because of the large diaspora,

14:58you can find them everywhere in the city.

15:02So I'm visiting a local business near the airport

15:04that has been making samosas for decades.

15:07This place is so popular,

15:09they pump out over 10,000 samosas a day, by hand.

15:12Suki Chata has been making samosas for over 55 years.

15:27She's been mentoring her daughter-in-law, Raman Chata,

15:30to eventually take over the business.

15:32Where is the recipe from?

15:33This is mom's recipe.

15:34This is chapati making by hand.

15:36Okay, okay, yeah.

15:37That's why it's a little crepsy-crepsy.

15:39The exact art of A1's dough is a closely-held secret.

15:44But like samosas from all across the Indian subcontinent,

15:48A1 stuffs theirs with an assortment of ingredients,

15:51and then fries them until golden brown.

15:56But first, they have to be properly folded.

15:59So she does 600 in an hour.

16:02600 in an hour?

16:03Yeah, so that's four trays.

16:04Whoa!

16:05I love the way, like, she's got a rhythm.

16:09It's like...

16:10But, but, but...

16:11It's like...

16:12A1 is in-game.

16:13While I was working in England,

16:14I always work in England!

16:16And then after that,

16:17we came here to the New England nonetheless.

16:18And then when I moved to the United States,

16:21and the other people they lived in that basement,

16:23and many several cellulots,

16:24the nurses, the nurses, the nurses, the nurses,

16:28the nurses, the nurses, the nurses,

16:29and the nurses.

16:30They worked in that basement in that basement.

16:31oh yeah here we go hot fresh samosas go for it what I really like about your

16:51samosas is how the skin is so crackly yeah and like it's blistering like you

16:57can hear it wonderful so there's peas in there there's potatoes the cumin seeds cumin seeds

17:07that's what I'm smelling right away like right away you talk about like you know food can be a

17:14uniter of course what better vehicle and vessel than the samosa which like and anyone can appreciate

17:23regardless of where you're from it's also effing delicious like over the years a one's menu has

17:31expanded beyond samosas to traditional Indian confections including one of my favorite sweets

17:37you know there are a couple of things that like I always get when I come here my mom raised me

17:43on gulab jamun on gulab jamun well they're right here ah gulab jamun it seems simple but this is

17:52decade of nostalgia milk solids that are deep fried then dunked in this sweet saffron cardamom syrup

17:59sometimes served hot sometimes not

18:03I'm not saying anything because it's taking me to a place it's transporting me to like childhood

18:14we're near the airport but this is the best plane this is the jet that takes you literally back in time

18:25in space as night falls mississauga's south asian community comes to life thousands gather at their

18:44favorite plazas turning parking lots into amphitheaters where families celebrate food and music

18:55all over the world and all in this one hub near the airport where food and culture meet this is

19:16where Kim and our met organize a regular hangout for enthusiasts of Bhangra traditional Punjabi music

19:22dance why this plaza why did you pick Ridgeway when you come here it's more of like a Mila we call

19:28it Mila which is like a festival when you go around here you see people walking around everywhere people

19:33smiling and laughing and people come to eat once we're done performing and we just eat there's a lot of

19:38options here most restaurants are halal friendly and the options here are endless are you hungry do you

19:48want to go check out a restaurant absolutely from the subcontinent to all corners of the Levant some

19:54of these uh restaurants are open 24 7. oh really yeah if we're just hungry late at night we can always

19:59just come here there's always food this is where Mississauga's food is being redefined this is like

20:06all like just blowing my mind right now multiple generations coming together tradition and nostalgia

20:12becoming something new the remixing of culture live before your eyes this is a lot of food but we're

20:21gonna have some fun yeah it's one joyful feast in a parking lot who's hungry let's go let's go

20:27like it's so cool to see just all the kinds of people that are here that are just hanging out yeah

20:54I would like to come here because this is a place of like community yeah there's something really

21:02unique to the city of Mississauga where South Asian culture is woven into every aspect of life

21:07especially its food travel doesn't have to mean getting on a plane exploring the cuisine in the streets

21:16around the airport opens up a whole world of flavor

21:46so

21:48so

21:49you

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