A Brit’s Guide to Eating Cheap in Toronto (Without Living on Tim Hortons)

When I moved from Manchester to Toronto last January, I thought I was prepared for the sticker shock. I’d done my research. I knew rent would be mental. But nobody warned me that a pint and a basic pub meal would cost $35. Thirty-five Canadian dollars for fish and chips that would’ve been a tenner back home. The fish wasn’t even proper cod.

My first month here, I burned through my “settling in” budget just trying to eat like a normal human being. Grocery stores were baffling (why is milk in bags?), restaurant prices made me genuinely angry, and I found myself eating Subway twice a day because it was the only thing I recognized that wouldn’t bankrupt me. Rock bottom was eating a hot dog from a street vendor for dinner while standing in minus-20 weather, questioning all my life choices.

But eleven months later, I’ve cracked it. I’m eating better than I did in Manchester, spending less than $300 a month on food, and I haven’t set foot in a Subway since March. Turns out Toronto has some of the best cheap food in North America. You just have to know where to look, and more importantly, you have to stop looking for British food.

Chinatown: Where My Real Education Began

Spadina and Dundas looked dodgy as hell when I first wandered through. But that’s where I learned my first Toronto lesson: the dodgier it looks, the better the food deal. Mother’s Dumplings became my gateway drug. Eight proper dumplings for $7.99. Not those sad, frozen things from Tesco. Proper handmade dumplings that would cost £15 in London.

The trick with Chinatown is going where the actual Chinese families go. Skip anywhere with an English menu in the window. Look for the places where you have to point at what other people are eating. Swatow Restaurant does a bowl of wonton noodle soup bigger than my head for $8.50. Back home, Wagamama charges £14 for a bowl half the size.

King’s Noodle confused me at first because everyone was sharing massive plates. Turns out that’s the move. Their roast pork on rice feeds two people easily for $13. I made friends with another regular, an old Chinese man named Thomas, who taught me to ask for “half and half” – half roast pork, half BBQ pork. Game changer.

But the real find was the Chinese bakeries. Mashion Bakery does these pork buns for $1.50 each. Two of those and you’re sorted for lunch. They also do this egg tart that’s basically a Portuguese pastel de nata but cheaper. I buy six at a time and have breakfast for a week for under $10.

Little Italy Isn’t Actually Where You Get Italian Food

This threw me off properly. Little Italy on College Street is tourist nonsense. Twenty-dollar pasta that would embarrass a Wetherspoons. The real Italian deals are on St. Clair West, which the locals call Corso Italia. Took me four months to figure this out.

Sud Forno makes a sandwich the size of a rugby ball for $9. Proper Italian mortadella, not that packaged rubbish. They’ll heat it in their pizza oven if you ask nicely. The old Italian ladies shopping there at 10 AM knew what they were doing. I started following them around like a lost puppy, seeing where they went.

California Sandwiches does veal parmigiana sandwiches for $8.75. It’s messy as hell and you’ll need napkins for days, but it’s brilliant. They’ve been doing the same thing since 1969 and honestly, why change? Though I still don’t understand why an Italian sandwich shop is called California. Toronto logic.

The Food Court Secret That Changed Everything

The Village by the Grange food court looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1985. That’s because it hasn’t. But that’s exactly why it’s brilliant. While everyone’s paying $18 for pad thai on King West, I’m getting the same thing for $7.50 from the Thai lady who’s been there since I was in primary school.

The strategy is to do a lap first, see who’s busiest. The Japanese place run by actual Japanese people (not the Korean-run sushi places, no offense) does a salmon teriyaki bento for $9.95. In the PATH downtown, the same thing is $16.99. Mental.

Urban Eatery at Eaton Centre is posh by comparison, but their international vendors are still cheaper than restaurants. Paramount does a shawarma plate for $12 that’s bigger than anything I’ve seen in London’s Edgware Road, and I lived there for three years.

But the absolute winner is the food court at Galleria Supermarket. It’s Korean-run, way up on Dupont, and nobody who isn’t Korean seems to know about it. Their food court does proper Korean BBQ for $10. Ten dollars. For meat that’s actually cooked in front of you. I took a date there once. She was confused. We didn’t have a second date. Her loss.

Kensington Market: Chaos You Can Eat

Kensington Market reminded me of Camden Market if Camden Market wasn’t completely ruined by tourists and actually had good food. It’s mental in the best way. Seven Lives Tacos does proper tacos for $5 each. Not those hard-shell Old El Paso abominations we get in Britain. Actual tacos.

Rasta Pasta sounds like a joke but their jerk chicken on rice and peas for $8 is no laughing matter. The portion is massive and properly spicy. Not British-spicy where they wave a chili in the general direction. Properly spicy where you need that coconut water they sell for $2.

The trick with Kensington is going on weekdays. Weekends are amateur hour with queues everywhere. Tuesday at 2 PM? You’re golden. Also, always say yes to hot sauce. Always. Even if you think you can’t handle it. The vendors respect you more and sometimes give you extra.

Pow Wow Café confused me because it’s indigenous food, which we don’t really have in the UK. Their Indian taco (which isn’t Indian like India-Indian, it’s Native American Indian, this country’s naming conventions are confusing) is $12 but it’s two meals worth of food. The fry bread alone is worth it.

The University of Toronto Goldmine

Living near U of T campus was accidental but turned out to be genius for cheap eats. Students are broke everywhere, but Toronto students have somehow created an entire ecosystem of affordable food that’s actually good.

The food trucks on St. George Street are legendary. Blue Donkey does a souvlaki wrap for $8 that puts my local kebab shop in Manchester to shame. The queue at lunch is all professors and medical students, which tells you something.

But the real hack is the subsidized cafeterias in the colleges. Hart House has a proper dining hall that’s open to the public. Nobody knows this. Full breakfast for $6.95. Proper breakfast, not those Tim Hortons sandwiches that taste like sadness.

The grad student pub at GSU sells pints for $5 and their curry is $9. It’s not winning any awards, but it’s curry and rice for under a tenner. In Toronto. That’s basically free. Plus, pretending to be a mature student doing a PhD is good for the ego.

The Suburban Strip Malls Where Magic Happens

This was the biggest surprise. Those ugly strip malls in Scarborough and North York that look like they should be demolished? That’s where immigrants open restaurants for other immigrants, and the food is incredible and cheap.

Take the 34 bus to Eglinton and Pharmacy. Looks terrible. But Mona’s Roti does doubles (Trinidadian breakfast) for $2.50. Two-fifty! It’s chickpea curry in fried bread and it’s breakfast perfection. The first time I ordered four because I assumed they were tiny. The lady laughed at me. I couldn’t finish them.

Scarborough is basically the UN of cheap food. Federicks does Hakka Chinese (which is Chinese food via India, keep up) where $10 gets you a lunch special that includes soup, spring roll, and a main that could feed a family. The fried rice alone is a meal.

Warden station area is Little Sri Lanka, which nobody tells you about in the tourism guides. Hopper Hut does a curry and hopper combo for $6. In London, the same thing in Tooting would be £12 minimum. Plus, the owner always throws in extra papadum if you attempt a few words in Tamil. Mine are terrible but he appreciates the effort.

The Grocery Store Education

Took me three months to figure out the grocery store hierarchy. Loblaws is for rich people. Metro is for people pretending to be rich. No Frills is where normal humans shop. FreshCo is even cheaper. Food Basics is basically free but you need to check expiration dates.

But the real revelation was the ethnic grocery stores. Nations in the Stockyards does a whole roasted chicken for $7.95. That’s four meals if you’re smart about it. Their produce section is half the price of Loblaws and actually fresher because it moves faster.

PAT Central on Bloor is Korean and does these meal kits where everything’s prepped and you just cook it. Feeds two for $12. It’s like HelloFresh but without the subscription nonsense and environmental guilt.

Sunny Foodmart in Chinatown sells produce for prices that don’t make sense. Bok choy for 79 cents. Ginger for practically nothing. I learned to shop like the Chinese grandmas: buy what’s cheap that day and figure out what to cook later. My stir-fry game has improved dramatically.

The Rules I’ve Learned

Never eat anywhere in the Financial District unless your work’s paying. It’s all $20 salads and sadness. Walk ten minutes in any direction and prices drop by half.

Avoid anywhere that calls itself “authentic British” or has a union jack in the window. It’s always disappointing and triple the price. The Caledonian on College charged me $18 for bangers and mash. The sausages were President’s Choice from Loblaws. I could tell.

Happy hour is your friend, but not the way we do it in Britain. Here it’s 3-6 PM, not after work. Adjust your schedule. I’ve started having “late lunch meetings” that happen to coincide with half-price wings.

The portions here are American-sized. Order one thing, see how big it is, then order more if needed. I spent my first month ordering like I was in Britain and throwing away half my food. Now I get one main and I’m sorted.

What I Spend Now

My weekly food budget is about $70, sometimes less. Monday is cheap produce day at Nations. Tuesday is Chinatown for dumplings and buns for the week. Wednesday is usually Kensington for something interesting. Thursday is leftovers. Friday is whatever food truck looks good at lunch and grocery shopping for the weekend.

I meal prep now, which sounds properly adult but is really just making a massive curry on Sunday and eating it for three days. Costs about $15 total to make enough curry to feed a small army. Or one British man for half a week.

The secret is to stop trying to eat like you’re in Britain. I spent three months looking for proper bacon and paying $12 for back bacon from the imported section. Now I just eat peameal bacon like a local and pay $4. It’s actually better, but don’t tell my mum.

The Social Aspect Nobody Mentions

Eating cheap in Toronto became how I actually made friends here. Bonding over finding good cheap eats is universal. My closest mate here is a guy from Mumbai who showed me all the good Indian places in Little India. We have a WhatsApp group where we share food finds. Last week someone found a place doing $2 samosas that are bigger than your fist.

Dating on a budget is actually easier here than in London. “Want to get dumplings in Chinatown?” is a perfectly acceptable date. In London, you’d need to drop £60 minimum to impress anyone. Here, knowing the good cheap spots makes you interesting, not cheap.

A Year Later

I’m not going to lie and say Toronto is cheap. It’s not. But it’s possible to eat well without spending your rent money, which is more than I can say for London these days. The variety here is mental. In one week, I can eat food from fifteen different countries, all authentic, all for less than a tenner per meal.

The other day, I found myself giving directions to a newly arrived British couple. They were standing outside the Firkin on King, looking at the menu in horror. “Thirty dollars for fish and chips?” the bloke said. I walked them to Mother’s Dumplings. They looked skeptical at first, properly British about trying something new. But watching them discover what eight dollars can buy in Toronto? That was worth every overpriced meal I suffered through in my first month.

Toronto’s not trying to be London or Manchester or anywhere else. Once I stopped expecting it to be Britain with better weather (though the weather’s actually worse, whoever told me Toronto was mild was having a laugh), everything clicked. The food here tells the story of everywhere else in the world, just not Britain. And honestly? That’s brilliant. Though I still can’t get a proper Sunday roast for less than $40, and that’s a tragedy I’m learning to live with.