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A Dosa Street Food That May Never Be
Photos by Vanessa Toye.
Only three more people are ahead and the potent curry aromas are teasing everyone to keep waiting it out. The entire event has been spent standing in this line, two hours for a dosa, to try one of the foods at the Toronto Street Treats Event. Thankfully, satellite foodies circled around to other lines and snapped up a variety of dishes for Torontoist to eat that were quickly disappearing into the stomaches of the swelling crowd.
No one expected and few were prepared for the masses that showed up (unofficial participant Sunshine Shakes did and set up a booth in the corner). Colborne Lane ran out of cereal and packed up before the official start time. Forty pounds of tripe couldn’t satiate the crowd. Chris McDonald from Cava was found apologetically tearing up buns and wiping down the sides of his Le Creuset pots to stave off the hungry. All this at only 12:20 p.m. Lines easily surpassed one hundred people and few were deterred. News of a stall selling out of food would trickle down and lines scattered as people went in search of the shortest wait. However, many still left hungry and resorted to nearby food trucks.
Not a scrap of food was left at the event. Torontoist never even got that dosa. Running out of the spiced potato filling with only two people ahead, an empty dosa shell just would not do. Throughout, spirits ran high and as the lines were culled to a handful of people there were a few who remarked jokingly (maybe only half jokingly) that they would normally complain if any restaurant took two hours to serve them food.
The immense popularity of the event is proof enough that Torontonians are demanding variety along our sidewalks, but that’s not enough. With the city consistently using the excuse of the public’s health for selling anything other than the ubiquitous hot dog, the nature of the event showed that there are many types of foods that can be made safely on other premises for quick heating or final construction on the street. And for all the professed low-risk that hot dogs are supposed to offer, an inspection report released just days after the event has shown that you cannot avoid risk with food.
Some may complain that many of the offerings weren’t practical, but at least they were an attempt to give us something more unique and healthy. Salad won’t cut it and the hamburgers and samosas set to arrive later this summer likely won’t work for a culture concerned about how much trans-fat they’re consuming. Maybe we’ll see the doors widen even more by August 1 or at the very least soon afterwards.
If you’re wondering what we finally did get our hands on and how it was, street treats were rated from a range of 1 to 5 in several categories with 5 representing top marks and effort.
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CAVA $2 |
5 |
2 |
5 |
12 |
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DIDIER $2 |
3 |
5 |
3 |
11 |
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IZAKAYA $5 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
10 |
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THE LOCAL CAFÉ $2 |
5 |
5 |
2 |
12 |
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THE LOCAL CAFÉ $3 |
4 |
4 |
2 |
10 |
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RAIN $5 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
5 |