Oshawa's Food People (Part 1)

The best thing about being a food delivery guy is the people I meet along the way.

I don’t mean the customers: they’re pretty cool, for the most part, and ultimately it’s their tips that keep me coming back for more. I’m talking about the restaurant people; the cooks, the servers, the order takers.

It’s no easy feat feeding Oshawa’s hungry masses. We have eclectic tastes, we do. Don’t be so surprised. I deliver burger and fries, pizza and wings and fried chicken, for sure. Chinese food as well. But on most nights I’m also delivering sushi, shawarma, tacos and Thai. Fish and chips is still a mainstay, but so is pasta and pitas.

It takes a team effort to make all this happen and as a freelancer working for a delivery service, I get to be part of a dozen or so different teams every night.

My favourite crew works out of Mr. Burger on Bloor Street. It’s a busy place on the weekend, and if I’m in the neighbourhood cooling my heels waiting for my next delivery, that’s where you might find me – to the occasional displeasure of Gwen, Mrs. Burger herself. But Gwen and her son Jay have assembled a great staff – there’s Jerry and Judy, Lindsay and Candice, Peyton and Zack – so it’s no wonder it’s a popular diner. They churn out hundreds of burgers every night and the best fries in town.

Cyrus, a Persian restaurant on Ritson Road south, is another spot I’m happy to visit. Owners Cyrus and Denene – two of the nicest people in the business – serve up smiles and the best shawarma in Durham Region. A class act, those two, and their shawarmas are so good they’ve got regular customers as far away as Ajax.

I have two regular Chinese places: Mayflower on King Street East and New Dragon on Simcoe Street South. Mayflower might be Oshawa’s busiest and the long lineups at peak times (you should check out this place on Christmas Eve) are a testament to the family restaurant’s success. Owner Tom and his wife Cal Ling (who just returned to work with new baby son in tow) make the best egg rolls in town and their two older, school-age children are among the brightest, most personable kids I know. Always reading, those two.

New Dragon is another one of my favourite places. Most times I’m there I’m giving English lessons to Sing, who usually has a word or phrase he wants explained. I teased him once about his old, old school order-taking software, until I was told by his wife Huan that her husband created the program himself back in the day. “Still works fine,” Sing added.  I also called him Wing (‘cause that’s what the sign on the wall said) until he schooled me on that, too. Seems Chinese tradition dictated that he and his brothers are all named Wing, and middle names are the preferred form of address.

Lesson learned.

One of my main go-to spots is KFC on Simcoe Street, just north of Hwy 401, where Christian, Helen and a bevy of lovely young ladies (and a couple of young dudes in the back) put their unique spin on the Colonel’s original recipes.

The Mary Browns restaurant on King Street West (across from the Oshawa Centre) is another fashionable fried chicken joint, thanks to franchisee John and his youthful front counter staff,  which usually mean Jolie or the always bubbly Vanessa.

There are lots more Oshawa food people I know, but I’ll save Part 2 for Friday’s blog. Unless something newsy comes up that I feel like writing about instead, which will naturally wreck my whole schedule.

I’ll adapt.