What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Scarborough?

Maybe it’s the east-end Toronto suburb’s polarizing transit debate, its documented electoral support for Ford Nation, or its role as a new Canadian home for thousands of immigrants.

Whatever comes to mind, chances are it’s not food. But could this Toronto suburb be the dining capital of the world?

American economist Tyler Cowen recently posed that question in a blog post after tagging alongside representatives from the University of Toronto Scarborough’s multidisciplinary food studies initiative for a tour of the area’s ethnic offerings last week.

“I concluded Scarborough is the best ethnic food suburb I have seen in my life, ever, and by an order of magnitude,” wrote Cowen, author of An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies.

It’s a bold statement that’s casting a new light on an area that’s long lived in the shadow of downtown Toronto, the province’s cultural mecca for foodies and tourists.

Over the phone from his office at George Mason University in Virginia, Cowen noted that people in Toronto seem to perceive the new, hip restaurants to be elsewhere. “But it seems to me, you don’t come close to this part of town,” he said.

Rick Halpern, dean of UTSC and Cowen’s tour guide last Wednesday, agreed that most people are fixated on the downtown core. “No one goes east of the DVP,” he lamented.

Cowen’s post is making the rounds online, and sparking discussion on blogs and Reddit. Scarborough is “a foodie’s best kept secret,” as one commenter put it, though it’s no secret to locals.

“I would say that people who are into food, and who have a car, explore Scarborough and other suburbs,” said Jennifer Bain, the Star’s food editor, who has highlighted many of the area’s offerings over the years — including Uighur fare from Scarborough’s Chinese Muslim community, sweets from local Filipino bakeries, and the global flavours of Hakka Chinese food, to name a few.

Tyler Cowen's Scarborough fare

But many people and publications focus on the downtown core, and west end in particular, she noted, which can give people a “skewed look” at the geographic and cultural diversity of the GTA’s food scene.

Local food lovers and restaurant staff say Cowen’s public praise of Scarborough-specific cuisine is welcome.

“It makes us feel proud,” said Vince Gutierrez, manager at Remeley’s, a restaurant that’s been offering homestyle Filipino fare on Sheppard Ave E. near McCowan Rd. since 1997, and one of the stops on the group’s tour last week.

He agreed people focus on the “biggies” — the larger, trendier restaurants in the core.

“Food is one way of showing what a wrong perception (people) have of Scarborough,” Gutierrez said.

“It’s great news to hear,” echoed Ganesan Sugumar, CEO and director of Saravanaa Bhavan Canada, an Indian vegetarian restaurant chain. (Cowen’s tour group visited the location near McCowan Rd. and Finch Ave. East.)

“This is honestly the best cuisine, I could say, in Canada,” Sugumar added. “We have so many ethnic restaurants.”

When the Star visited the location on Tuesday, manager Meera Parameswaran showed off the restaurant’s rava dosa — a dish Cowen’s group bought on Wednesday — which features southern Indian-style crepes with a variety of flavoured chutneys, including coconut, coriander, tomato and a lentil soup dipping sauce.

Have your say

“We’re so glad that people are coming to know that there is more in Scarborough,” she said, adding many people consider Scarborough a low-profile area.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“This area is not highlighted because it’s not a rich area, so therefore the people are not highlighted in the right way and the promotion is not done in the right way,” added Sugumar.

Sugumar said he’d like to see more promotion of what Scarborough has to offer when it comes to ethnic food, in the vein of big food festivals like Taste of the Danforth and Taste of Little Italy.

While there is the annual Taste of Lawrence street festival and the newer TO Food Fest in Scarborough, now in its third year, the latter’s co-founder said the area is still under-promoted.

“I think that there is a negative connotation associated with Scarborough,” said Winston Chiu, co-founder of TO Food Fest, which is happening in July at the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto on Sheppard Ave. East.

The area’s diversity — especially when it comes to food — is overlooked, he added.

“Everyone eats. For my family, that’s the only time you can get people together, when we’re eating. I think food is a great way to bring people together,” he said.

“Maybe if we could bring people together more, it would reduce some of the conflicts in Scarborough that you hear about.”