Vikas Sharma

When I moved to Vancouver last year, I was yearning for a good Trinidadian joint to check out, but I didn’t think that was in the cards.

I noticed a lack of diversity, aside from a few established groups in Vancouver – and I thought it had to do with distance from the home country.

For example, my mother came from Trinidad in the late 60’s and was supposed to establish roots in Winnipeg, but when she landed in Toronto, she was already a five-hour plane ride from San Fernando, so I think she felt she needed to go no further.

I can’t imagine if she would have had to fly another four or five hours further into Canada to a place like Vancouver.

Today, my partner sent me a couple of Instagram profiles for West Indian joints in the city, and I was shocked.

I checked out the menu at Baby Dhal and proclaimed that we were heading there after our exercises.

First – I love their branding. It’s straight from the Indian cinema posters of the 70’s – something I grew up with spending weekends on Gerrard Street’s Little India in Toronto.

Second – when I saw that this place is serving Aloo Pies, I lost my mind. That was a huge treat that my grandmother used to make for us – albeit with fish during Easter, because there was no meat at Easter for my Catholic grandparents. I think I remember eating five or six at a time when I was a youngster. And my grandmother would make them stinking hot (and I mean with scotch bonnets chopped up in that aloo).

So – the trek ensued.

We arrived and the young man who was overseeing the operation asked us if we had an order in already. Man, this place was rocking with people picking up pre-placed orders.

I didn’t catch the name of the gentleman, who I believe is one of the owners, but he was really great to chat with about the food – and definitely was listening to my suggestions (I said that he HAD to get pumpkin in there as an option for the vegetable roti).

I was expecting to stop in and just pick up a buss-up shut to take home and eat with the palak I made at home the night before.

But my partner wanted to dig into the menu … and she’d never had Doubles before.

A couple of things.

What’s a buss-up shut? It’s a parantha that’s torn up a bit and made easier to eat because you can break off the pieces and use it to sop up your curry.

What’s a parantha? It’s basically a croissant rolled out like a roti and grilled to perfection; layers of dough, folded and rolled back out, over and over again, with butter, or ghee, or Crisco as my mum used to use in the 70’s. Crispy, buttery, flaky, and tender.

What’s Doubles? Think about two small rotis fried up to crispy goodness, take a big spoon of chana masala (spicy chick peas) and stick it in the middle. It’s the West Indian take on Chana Bhatura.

Order time – we both ordered the veggie option; she had it with dhalpuri, and I had mine with buss-up shut. We also ordered a Doubles to share.

What’s dhalpuri? It’s a very thin roti that has ground, par-boiled split peas between the very thin layers of roti.

We loved every bit of our orders – it was tasty but I’ve got a couple of small callouts.

1 – once Baby Dhal gets their groove (they’ve only been open for four months) – I’d like to see them offer singular veggie offerings. For example, I didn’t read the menu correctly, and expected to have just the spinach with my order, but it came with aloo (potato) and chana (chick peas), which I typically don’t want with my roti.

2 – I know it’s Vancouver, but hot (spicy) has got to mean spicy. I’ve got a lot of tolerance, and perhaps I should have been clearer when I said I wanted my meal “hot,” because it tasted as if there was virtually no pepper sauce in my food.

Overall, these people know how to cook.

The food was fresh (you need to be prepared to wait, as it’s not your typical West Indian roti shop), tasty, and the service was great.

Return: 100% – I love what they’ve got going on, and would love to see a place like Baby Dhal thrive. Please amp up the pepper sauce and let’s see about maybe laying off the aloo and chana on the veggie option if people don’t want it.

Rating: 7.5/10