This traditional Malaysian restaurant is expanding its menu for a new generation of foodies

Metro Morning's food guide Suresh Doss joins the program every week to discuss one of the many great GTA eateries he's discovered.

This week, he's bringing us to Breakfast ING in Mississauga. 

Below is a lightly edited transcript of Doss's conversation with guest host Jill Dempsey.

Suresh Doss: It's really hard to summarize what Malaysian cuisine is because it changes from town to town; as you go from Kedah and Penang in the north to the bustling city of Kuala Lumpur. And then there's this notion of how food evolves and changes all the time. So I wanted to take you to a place in Mississauga that kind of touches on this to give you a bit of a crash course.

Jill Dempsey: Alright, so take me there.

Suresh Doss: So we are going to a small takeout place that expanded its dining room recently. This is a place called Breakfast ING and it's located in the Deer Run Shopping Centre. It's a great strip mall for a variety of cuisines. This place has been there for about seven years now and when it first opened I remember the menu was compact and it highlighted traditional Malaysian dishes like Bak Kut Teh. 

Jill Dempsey: What is that?

Suresh Doss: It's a pretty hard soup to find in Toronto. It's a sublime soup that is considered to be of Fujian origin. Imagine something like a broth with aromatics and spices and simmering pork ribs that's cooked over an extended amount of time. The best way I can describe it is that there's a tea-like quality to it. It's very subtle and aromatic, but then you have the depth that comes from the rendering of pork fat and the simmering pork ribs.

There is a version of this at Breakfast ING that they serve in a clay pot with enoki mushrooms on the side and some tofu skin fritters so you can kind of sip the soup and then dip things into it. There's some bean curds that can go in there. There's no noodles in this. There's some rice on the side. How do you feel about noodles?

Jill Dempsey: You know you're killing me right now the way you're describing this. I like pho.

Suresh Doss: OK, you like, pho. So there's pho. There's ramen and then there's laksa, which is like this wonderfully spicy noodle soup that has many variations throughout Southeast Asia. This is a soup that is fortified with curry paste and coconut milk to give it a luscious sort of broth. And here at Breakfast ING there's a wonderful version. It's loaded with diced chicken and squid balls and shrimp and bean curd puffs. So you have this glowing sort of orange soup that is really comforting. It's slightly spicy. I would normally say you can get the laksa to share, but after you have a couple of sips of it, you probably don't want to share it.

Jill Dempsey: No, I'm not going to share it. 

Suresh Doss: You're going to have your bowl, I'm going to have my bowl, and we'll be happy. And if you do want to share something, I would suggest the roti chana. 

Jill Dempsey: And what's that?

Suresh Doss: This is reminiscent of the plethora of rice and gravy dishes found throughout India. And there's so many variations of it. It's said to have been brought to Malaysia via Indian traders. So I want you to picture a plate of freshly baked flatbread, liberally coated with some ghee or olive oil and served with this wonderful rich chicken curry, with a rich gravy. Typically in Malaysian curries, there's lemon grass and star anise. The gravies tend to be quite aromatic, so you want to tear this, like wonderful bread and then dip it into the curry and maybe pluck some chicken meat off the bone. It is pretty rare to find in this particular fashion. That's what I suggest we get.

Jill Dempsey: You said the menu has expanded since it first opened. Can you tell me about that?

Suresh Doss: So this is really interesting. The dining room has changed and I find that now this place is kind of helping to accommodate young diners; kids that are in college and university, which is the dining scene in Mississauga right now. 

You have a lot of young faces at restaurants and they're seeing food through a very different lens where they're exposed to world cuisine, but social media as well. And food in Malaysia and Southeast Asia is evolving at a rapid pace. So you're now seeing this duality. So there's a menu of like crepes, so Chinese-style or green onion pancakes that are stuffed with a variety of things, meat floss and egg and corn. There's also a really interesting sandwich menu that's inspired with Malaysian and Taiwanese flavours. So there's like a Taiwanese sausage sandwich that is wildly aromatic and full of spice. 

So I feel like there's two menus now. One that's traditional and one that is boldly going into the future by mixing flavours and being respectful. It's kind of our superpower in the GTA where we are able to go and eat something traditional but also eat food that is evolving here. 

Jill Dempsey: I also like what you're saying about the braveness of the palette of the younger generation. It's important because for so long people were not willing to expand their repertoire.

Suresh Doss: Young people don't necessarily have the baggage that their parents may have had. And they want to play with things because they see it on TikTok and they see it on Twitter and Instagram but there's some respect that goes into the way these come together. So I think breakfast ING is showing that. 

Jill Dempsey: It's such a treat. Thanks so much for sharing.