College Falafel‘s East Coast Donair Combo, $19.99, 450 Ossington Ave.
The dish
For a brief time in the early 2010s, the Halifax donair had a bit of a Toronto resurgence thanks to a few restaurants serving East Coast comforts. But before that, this mom-and-pop falafel and shawarma spot had already had it on its menu since 2004. It’s a thinly sliced beef shawarma wrapped in a pita with — I recommend asking for “everything” for maximum vegetal crunch — diced tomatoes, tabbouleh, lentils, onions, pickled cabbage, turnips and beets, then finished with a donair sauce made from condensed milk, vinegar, garlic powder and sugar. It’s a generously sized wrap, especially with all the veggies packed in. “Have you had this before?” co-owner Bardhyl Musa asks first-timers in case they find the tart, garlicky, salty-sweet and creamy sauce jarring compared with the more traditional tahini sauce.
It’s a novel twist that supposedly traces back to a Greek-owned pizzeria in Halifax in the 1970s, when its owner made the sauce in an attempt to recreate tzatziki with the ingredients he had on hand. At College Falafel, it all started when a regular customer from the East Coast asked Musa if he could make one. Musa had never heard of it before, but luckily the customer’s mom owned a donair shop in Halifax and gave him the recipe for the sauce. A letter from the mom expressing her delight that her recipe made its way to Toronto is framed on the restaurant’s wall.
The restaurant
Opened in 2002, College Falafel is a lived-in neighbourhood spot owned by husband-and-wife team Bardhyl and Oljana Musa. The two met while working in the restaurant industry in Konispol, southern Albania, in the 1980s and later ran their own bakery for seven years. After moving to Toronto in the late 1990s following the fall of communism, they took over a falafel joint at this busy intersection, keeping most of the menu while adding Albanian dishes like walnut baklava, chicken kebabs, stuffed eggplant, rice pudding and almond cakes.
The restaurant expanded in 2009 to add a dining room, now adorned with plants and walls covered in handwritten letters from customers, magazine and newspaper clippings, a photo of Sloan’s Chris Murphy taking a bite of a donair and an odd backlit photo of a customer who enjoyed the rice pudding so much that he insisted Bardhyl take a photo of him eating it and turn it into a light-up sign.
What else is on the menu
The donair alone is $14.99, but it’s worth splurging the extra five bucks to turn it into a combo (what else are you going to do with that $49.11 Bread Settlement money?). It comes with a drink and a large, warming bowl of lentil soup with hints of curry and tomato, plus fresh parsley, celery and dill. Claim one of the tables in the cosy dining room to feel like you’re eating in the Musas’ dining room, especially if you opt for a cup of mint tea and some of Oljana’s baklava ($3.49 for the finger-shaped ones, $5 for the larger triangles). Freshly fried chickpea falafels are $2.50 a pop and, on occasion, they’ll make a chickpea-and-fava-bean mix after an Egyptian regular told them fava is preferred in Egyptian cuisine.
Explore the area
The intersection is rife with culinary gems. Around the corner is the perpetually busy Conejo Negro (838 College St.) where reservations are strongly recommended for dinner. Across the street is the Candy Bar (849 College St.) where owner Paola Giavedoni stocks her shop with hard-to-find salty and sweet licorices, Bubs (ask your teen) and small-batch chocolates from coast-to-coast Canadian producers. Night owls should head to the Emmet Ray (924 College St.) for their extensive whiskey and Scotch selection, as well as live jazz.
