I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t realize there’s a place for Zanzibar food just a short drive from my house. Actually, there were a lot of good spots to eat in my neighbourhood that I didn’t know about until food writer (and full disclosure: a longtime friend) Suresh Doss pointed them out as we drove to Scarborough. Did I mention I’ve been living in my ’hood for the last 25 years?

The Colombo, Sri Lankan-born Doss is on a mission to spread the good word of Scarborough’s rotis, dosas, pho, baklavas and laksas by taking Toronto’s hungry foodsters — as well as international food writers and chefs — on food tours of the neighbourhood he grew up in. Diners hear all the time that the suburbs are the best places for (insert non-white cuisine here) but don’t know where to start. That’s where Doss comes in.

“Scarborough is a bit of a unicorn when it comes to food. The immigrant population here drives a lot of the interesting culinary concepts,” says Doss, 38, who lived in Scarborough for two decades when his family immigrated here. “When you think of roti or laksa, you get a better sense of how it’s evolving in Scarborough than downtown because the culture is up here, the immigrants are up here.”

Five to six times a month he’ll drive up about six diners, mostly from downtown, to six to eight of his favourite spots at a cost of $125 to $150 per head (the price includes food). The restaurants don’t pay to be a part of the tour, nor do they know he’s coming — unless it’s a particularly large group. Depending on the trip, he’ll take diners to Markham, North York, Brampton, Scarborough or Little India, the only downtown stop.

Doss now lives downtown, but visits the suburbs weekly searching for new places with help from his tipster mom who still lives in Scarborough. He has a spreadsheet of some 800 places, organized by location, cuisine, price, seats and notes on what to order. He visits 12 to 15 places each week, some old, some new; the majority of them grab-and-go places bundled together at the same strip mall or intersection.

Our first stop is a Trinidadian roti and doubles place, Mona’s Roti, on Sheppard near McCowan, which has been around since 2003. Inside the cramped takeout spot, bakers churn out golden-brown rotis by the hundreds and the aroma of curry fills the air. We ate piping-hot bone-in chicken rotis and doubles piled high with spicy chickpeas on the hood of his rental car, just like he does on a Friday night—or when he takes people on these tours.

He’s also done crawls with food writers from Chicago, Vancouver, Montreal and Berlin who are tired of reading about the same spots on every Toronto top 10 list; food critics wanting to extend their Toronto coverage; and sent recommendations to chefs like former Cava owner Chris McDonald to Mak Deli, an eastern European food shop in North York.

“He knows a lot of small, out of the way places that aren’t normally covered,” says McDonald. “These are the obscure little places that aren’t tainted by social media or make what they think people want … As a cook, learning about what people eat is a lens into their culture.”

After doubles, we’re eating a big bowl of brisket pho in a rich curry, laksa-like broth at the nearby Pho Metro in the midst of the lunch rush. It’s probably not a staple dish at most Vietnamese places (the owner tells us she made up the dish) but nevertheless it’s a mashup that works.

“(People) don’t want any riffing or modern takes because a lot of people here probably didn’t leave their home countries under the best circumstances so for them, food is a conduit to a time and place and they don’t want it to be altered,” says Doss, whose family fled Sri Lanka due to the decades-long civil war.

At Sri Lankan takeout place New Quality Bakery, which has been around for 18 years, owner Mary Martin made us a special order of lamprais, a weekend-only feast of rice, mutton and chicken curry, fish, pickled eggplant, spicy shrimp sambal and hard-boiled egg wrapped tightly in a banana leaf. Before leaving, Doss picks Martin’s brain on where she likes to eat: Karaikudi down the road for South Indian roti, the same place Doss’ mom/tipster goes to.

One of the last stops is one of Doss’ favourite food spots: a plaza on Ellesmere, just east of Victoria Park Ave., made up of just a handful of businesses, most of them eateries too small to seat anyone.

There’s a place for sushi, East African-Indian, Lebanese pastries, Filipino takeout, kebabs, Chinese and pizza. It’s Toronto’s multiculti makeup encapsulated in a single-storey plaza with ample parking.

Here you’ll find Karibu Restaurant serving the cuisine of Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, off the coast of East Africa, with an Indian spin (owner Mohammed Jaffer explains that Indians have lived in Tanzania for centuries). If it wasn’t for Doss I would have never got a taste of Zanzibar Mix, a Tanzanian street food of potatoes topped with a thick, tangy sauce of crushed chickpeas, chilies, garlic, turmeric, tamarind, lemon and coconut topped with crispy samosa bits.

“People need to understand the city’s cultural mosaic is best seen when you leave the city in terms of real people cooking real food from a certain place and time,” says Doss.

“This is the makeup of Toronto. This is where the Tamil cooks and Filipino nannies live and eat. I’ve travelled a bit and feel spoiled, particularly with Scarborough, because I can get everything that I want within a short drive. If I’m travelling to another city, there’s great food but a lot of it is monoculture.

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“If you live in downtown Toronto, you owe it to yourself to come up here.”

Scarborough Stops

Here are the places Doss took me to during our day of eating. Whenever he’s organizing a food tour, Doss always tells diners not to jump the gun and gorge themselves at the first spot. Also, always bring a cooler to store leftovers while driving across the city on a hot day.

Mona’s Roti

A local institution, you can’t leave without a roti or a few doubles and an order of pholourie, fried chickpea dough balls. They aren’t shy with the spice level so wash it down with a bottle of Ting, a Jamaican grapefruit pop. 4810 Sheppard Ave. E., 416-412-1200, monasroti.com

New Quality Bakery

The Sri Lankan takeout spot has been around for 18 years (well, two in its current location). Come here early on the weekend to get lamprais, otherwise get Sri Lankan-style dosas topped with potato sambar or crispy and sweet coconut hoppers, 1415 Kennedy Rd., 416-292- 9100

Pho Metro

Try the curry pho, a tasty combination of vermicelli noodles in a not-too- spicy curry broth reminiscent of a laksa, 2057 Lawrence Ave. E., 416-750- 8898, phometro.com

Crown Pastries

I’ve covered the Syrian bakery before in the Star but the family-run bakery specializing in baklava made of hand-rolled, tissue-thin phyllo is a regular stop on Doss’ tours, 2086 Lawrence Ave. E., 647-351-2015, facebook.com/crownpastries/

Mina Bakery

A small Persian bakery with baklava and cookies. Doss’ favourite thing to get here is a container of saffron and pistachio ice cream: floral, nutty and not too sweet in a sunny amber colour, 80 Ellesmere Rd., 416-546-5388

Karibu Restaurant

Located beside Mina Bakery, this takeout spot offering a mix of East African and Indian plates and makes excellent fried-to- order beef samosas that are delicately crispy and well-spiced, 80 Ellesmere Rd., 416-385-1234

Correction – May 18, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated Mary Martin’s given name.