culture
Spice City Toronto: The Perfect Place for a Lebanese Lunch
Hidden away at the back of a plaza, Haddad’s Mid-East Bakeries serves up tasty Lebanese favourites.
Photo by Sarah Efron.
Hidden in the back of a plaza at Dufferin and Finch is the perfect place to sample the wonderful ingredients that make up Lebanese breakfast and lunch. Haddad’s Mid-East Bakeries consists of a small restaurant and retail shop, plus a kitchen in the back where the fresh bread is made. The 20-year-old restaurant is mainly frequented by Lebanese and Armenian immigrants seeking out the tastes of home.
Strangely, the restaurant is named Thyme & Sesame on its website, although the signage on site calls it Haddad’s. “They’re going to change the name on the sign, but they haven’t done it yet,” explains Nadine Hajjar, a communications student who works part time at the restaurant.
A couple of Lebanese origin order the kashkaval ($6), a sandwich with melted kashkaval Bulgarian cheese and tomatoes. It’s served on kaak, a bib-shaped flatbread with a hole in it, which makes it easy for mobile vendors in the Middle East to display pieces for sale. The sesame-studded bread is perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
The couple also ordered the ful ($7.99), a stew of mashed fava beans with a surprising kick. Ful can sometimes be bland, but this version is oozing with olive oil and lemon juice, and packed with hefty chunks of garlic and hot chilis. The result is an intense, tasty spread that you can stuff into a giant flatbread, inflated with warm air and fresh from the oven. The sandwich is garnished with mint leaves, tomatoes, olives, and green onion, a fresh yet comforting combination.
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Spice City Toronto explores Toronto’s great hole-in-the-wall restaurants and strip-mall joints serving food from all corners of the world.