Kevin K.
Yelp
So one of the oddest days on my recent Toronto trip had to do with, oddly enough, Portuguese chicken. See, during my past visits to Montreal I became addicted to the chicken at Romados, which is this delicious Portuguese style Rôti Frango that is flavorful, fresh, cheap and plenty (11 CDN can feed 2, provided that you start with 9 CDN and add a toonie for the fries-to-poutine upgrade). Me and the missus were looking for the Toronto equivalent at what-we-thought was little Portugal on Bloor street. I remembered there were some Portuguese joints near Palmerston/Little Italy...except I got the cross streets wrong. It was supposed to be between Ossington and Dufferin and not between Ossington and Bathurst. So getting off the Bloor-Danforth subway at Ossington and walking east towards Bathhurst (and not west) we got quite a shock when instead of seeing Portuguese chicken joints and cafes, we got an Ethiopian joint, a Dosa place...and signs for Koreatown?
Both me and the missus did a minor double take. I thought this town is known for the Jamaican joints (oh, how we laughed when former Mayor Rob Ford was caught on camera smoking crack with a bunch of Jamaican gangbangers, may he laugh in fat fuck heaven), the Tamils, the Irish and of course, the Chinese (although judging by the recent views of the Spadina Chinatown, most of them moved north). We didn't expect to see a large population of Koreans in Toronto. Hell, I don't even see an H-Mart here. (Oh, how we were proved wrong later when we saw the location near Yonge-Dundas square). Me and the missus had a laugh. "Oh, maybe it's the Chinese branching out to do Korean food, it's probably not that Korean". Then we saw an old gentleman in a shop parking lot eating a freshly made taiyaki (you know, one of those fish shaped pastries stuffed with azuki bean paste and called bungeo-pang), then we got nervous. Eh, those are only found in large Korean supermarkets, large Koreatowns with outdoor vendors (like LA), or a dedicated bakery. "Heh, maybe they have a Korean bakery nearby"
Oh boy was that an understatement. We saw the sign for Hodo (which are these walnut shaped cakes made with a pancake-like batter usually filled with sweet stuff) and we were like *meh*, they are sold in H-Marts premade, and there is a place in Murray Hill (NYC outer borough of Queens where a large Korean population exists) that specializes in it (even though they weren't that great). Then my wife's jaw dropped reading the awning - "Korean pancakes". Hottheok? We only saw them freshly made in 2 places back in the states...one is inside one of those fancy dessert places in Koreatown Manhattan...and the other is a little booth inside the LA Japantown mall. We rushed in. There is this massive industrial machine that was custom ordered from South Korea rolling out hodos using pre-made batter and fillings (wow, there's that much demand for them?!), and there is a lady in front of a griddle frying up hottheok. The missus decided to order one (brown sugar) to try along with a few of the hodos - a mix of azuki bean and sweet potatoes.
The hottheok was fresh, crisp and gooey, made with glutinous rice flour batter, and filled with carmelized sugar that is melted. It was actually the best out of all the hottheoks we had so far. The hodos were okay, but nothing that we haven't tried before. Hah, imagine that. We grabbed the hodos to go and strolled down Bloor street - there's a large construction site on Bloor and Bathurst (which so happened to be the former location of Honest Ed's, a discount retailer, Toronto institution and the business that made Ed Mirvish his fortune, which began his patronage of the Canadian theatrical arts - he ended up stabilizing the old Vic in London and was given an MBE for his contribution to the theatrical arts). Walking further down the street, we saw Lee's palace. An institution of Canadian music, much like how the Bowery ballroom in New York is a part of the local music scene. My bootleg copy of The Weakerthan's "Live at Lee's Palace November 6th, 2003" was recorded here. (The Weakerthans is a Canadian rock band from Winnipeg that was formed by one of the former members of Propagandhi - possibly one of the best things to come out of the Canadian prairies since shale oil). Then I realized that the Lee in Lee's palace is a Korean surname. So yes. Toronto has a Koreatown, and it's as Canadian as it can be. And you can get some kickass eats here. So yeah, I hope to stop by Hodo Kwaja again for some hottheok the next time me and the missus are in town.