Welcome to a new column by Toronto resident Rakshande Italia called Desi Dialogues. Desi Dialogues is a bi-weekly, light-hearted column that delves into the lives of the 600,000 South Asians that call the GTA their home. The term desi is derived from an ancient Sanskrit language, which means countrymen, and refers to people from the Indian subcontinent – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The column will discuss, debate, dissect and explore interesting stories about this vibrant community and its people in all aspects of their lives - be it their social and cultural lives or their quest for education. It will also explore their unique health practices such as yoga or the delicious foods these communities bring to Toronto. No aspect is too small to discuss at Desi Dialogues, and we hope that the column will not only talk to our ethnic communities but will also entertain our mainstream readers wishing to get a fresh look at this important community - predicted to be the largest ethnic group here by 2017, according to Statistics Canada.
We would love to hear what you have to say. Please send your feedback to rakshande.italia@gmail.com

My husband Ronnie says I must have been a “Chinese rice farmer or positively, 100 per cent, a Chinese restaurant owner,” in my previous birth. When I say, “That’s not true,” he immediately poses the question I hate to answer: “How else can you explain the way you go out of your way seeking Chinese food?
Frankly, I don’t have any answer to that. Except to blame my mother, who craved it when she was pregnant with me, eating only Chinese food for nine long months, as the spicy cuisine we South Asians savour wasn’t on her menu then.
Ronnie, unfortunately, had to see me experiencing similar Chinese cravings during my own pregnancy. The only difference was, I’d crave masala noodles – spicy noodles made in India for South Asian palates. Every day, I’d eat at least two of them, which hubby dutifully made for me, afraid he was supposed to “give in” during those precarious, hormone-filled times.
But my dad wasn’t so lucky. The instant-noodles culture wasn’t around 35 years ago, so every night, after my mom closed her clinic, poor dad would drive his doctor wife 40 kilometres to a quaint Chinese joint where she’d savour the shark fin soup made by Uncle Kong. (I always wondered how that soup didn’t make her feel queasy.)
My father would religiously order his orange and red spicy, saucy noodles, not authentic Chinese, but which falls under a South Asian classification, colloquially referred to as Indian Chinese, and better known in Toronto as Hakka Chinese.
Hakka cuisine has evolved over centuries, as the Hakka community, from China’s Canton province, migrated to India and cleverly innovated according to South Asians’ spicy palate. Once again, as 700,000 South Asians flood Toronto, Hakka joints that cater to this huge influx have grown exponentially, springing up in places such as Scarborough, on the Danforth and Toronto’s suburban neighbourhoods.
If you step into one of these restaurants, you can experience an interesting mix-and-match cuisine of spicy Indian ingredients such as green chilies, coriander leaves, red chili powder, expertly blended with tangy Chinese sauces, all stir-fried in one big wok to make a unique dish that’s partly Indian and partly Chinese.
Don’t ask me what that means. Suffice to say that the fusion style is so popular that it even finds a place in books and Internet sites as “Indian cuisine”.
Also, don’t expect to bask in a typical Chinese ambience, either through quaint Chinese musical chimes or Chinese lanterns. The chances are you’d be flooded with Bollywood music instead. In fact, some Chinese chefs even speak the Indian Hindi language, while their restaurant menus feature Indian starters such as pakoras (spicy meat\vegetable meatballs) and desserts such as kulfi (Indian ice cream).
And every Hakka restaurant worth its salt will sport a Manchurian chicken or the chili chicken on its menu. A hot favourite with South Asians, and prized possession for hotel owners, these recipes are ferociously guarded, with even junior chefs not being privy to its secret ingredients.
You see, with increased competition, poaching of good chefs has become common practice, and each restaurant wants to draw in crowds based on its own variation of these favourite dishes.
One last reminder: Don’t ask the chefs to “make it spicy” if you’ve never eaten it before. As one Hakka restaurant owner says, “A white man’s version of spicy is very different from a South Asian asking for the same.”
As for my mother, her Chinese cravings subsidized, but not her love for this food. Blame Uncle Kong, the chef whose restaurant we frequented, and who by then had become mom’s patient, frequenting our house – big wok in hand, drumming up some excellent Chinese meals.
Four years ago, my mom visited Toronto. After staying for five months and exhausting all the Canadian foods, she decided she couldn’t leave Toronto without savouring her Indian-Chinese.
So in -40 C, on a cold January night, just days before her back-to-India trip, we hunted down the first Hakka Chinese restaurant we could find and just ate – like pigs.
UP NEXT: Did you know that Toronto is home to almost 6,000 Zoroastrians, followers of the world’s oldest monotheistic religion, which has only 120,000 members left around the world? The spirited movement refuses to say it is dwindling. Interestingly, the GTA has the second largest concentration of Zoroastrians outside of India. As this tiny community celebrates its new year on Aug. 20, Desi Dialogues looks at this incredible community and its growing quest to retain an identity in Canada.