Editor’s note: This feature, by guest contributor Gizelle Lau – a Chinese-Canadian food and travel writer based in Toronto – is the first in an occasional series on “diaspora dining,” covering the best places to find our favorite cuisines outside of their places of origin. The history of Chinese in Canada – pioneers who left their native land in pursuit of a better life and future – is a familiar immigrant story.While the first record of Chinese in Canada dates back to the late 1700s, it wasn’t until the late 1800s and early 1900s that they began to arrive in greater numbers, establishing Chinatowns in cities such as Toronto and Vancouver and opening their own restaurants, grocery stores and laundromats. Despite exclusionary government policies that existed for many years, today Canada is home to one of the largest Asian populations outside of Asia, including over half a million Chinese in the Greater Toronto Area alone.

As we daydream and plan our travels for the year ahead, there is no shortage of “top-ten” lists telling us where to go and what to do there. At Culinary Backstreets, we like to zoom way in – all the way to the individual neighborhoods that make up our favorite cities, and the daily life that takes place in their streets. Sometimes the neighborhoods worth exploring in a city aren’t new, or “up-and-coming.” Oftentimes, a great neigborhood is one that’s been there all along, and deserves a second look. Maybe it’s a district whose residents and business owners are working to make changes, or an area where we’ve stumbled upon a restaurant that we had somehow missed before.

Explore our 2025 guide to gifts from the backstreets featuring culinary treasures from Europe, The Americas, and Asia. We've sourced one-of-a-kind kitchenware, spices, and specialty foods like Sicilian Moorish-head planters, artisanal Korean gochujang, Turkish kaymak, and Mexican barro negro pottery – and avoided Amazon altogether.