More Sort-of Secrets
The sort-of secret: Southeast Sandwiches, a fast-casual restaurant serving Southeast Asian takes on fast-food classics
You may have heard of it if: You live nearby and have a thing for sandwiches
But you probably haven’t tried it because: It’s in a Woodbridge strip mall
Southeast Sandwiches is a fast-casual takeout counter bringing a unique fusion to the table, taking familiar vessels like sandwiches and tacos and—as the name suggests—filling them with Southeast Asian flavours. For the past six years, owners Mike Maderazo and Kirujan “KJ” Namasivayam have been crafting sandwiches that offer a delightful departure from the ordinary.
Maderazo and Namasivayam first crossed paths in the kitchen of Terra, an Italian restaurant in Thornhill, where they worked together as line cooks for three years. While the world of fine dining instilled in them a dedication to perfection, Maderazo longed for something more simple. He always knew that one day he would open a sandwich shop where culinary excellence could meet everyday comfort food. In 2016, he took the first step by handing in his two weeks’ notice, with Namasivayam following suit shortly afterward.
Maderazo moved on to work at a burrito shop in Brampton while Namasivayam found a job at a Burger’s Priest in Vaughan. They knew that working in fast food would be vastly different from working in the kitchen of a fine-dining restaurant, so they jumped in with a willingness to adapt and learn. “It was an unconventional route, transitioning from fine dining to a burrito shop, but I was eager to learn the intricacies of the fast-food service industry,” says Maderazo. After a few months, he was promoted to manager. “A year in that place taught me invaluable lessons. I learned the ins and outs of working with suppliers and even met the guy who would eventually handle renovations and help build the Southeast Sandwiches shop. It allowed me to understand what it took to manage a fast-food style restaurant.”
“Many aspire to be the next Gordon Ramsay or Bobby Flay, but I always had a passion for sandwiches,” says Maderazo. “I wanted to keep things simple.”
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Maderazo and Namasivayam soon began looking for a location. In June 2018, they saw their current spot in an ad on Kijii. They knew it would be an uphill battle to open a restaurant in downtown Toronto, so they jumped on the Woodbridge location—plus, the space happened to be a five-minute drive from Namasivayam’s house.
Their vision for Southeast Sandwiches was clear: to introduce Filipino and Vietnamese ingredients and flavours in forms that were familiar to their customers—sandwiches, tacos and poutine. “We offer variations on classic dishes with our own unique twists,” says Maderazo. “For example, for our take on a pulled-pork sandwich, we might add ginger to the pork or incorporate lemongrass. Our Asian slaw, made with pickled carrots and daikon, is another example of blending traditional recipes with our own flair.”
Their deep-fried pork belly is more like chicharrón: they boil pork shoulder in a mix of soy sauce, vinegar, star anise, lemongrass, ginger, cinnamon sticks and brown sugar, letting it cool overnight before deep-frying it until it’s crispy on the outside, succulent on the inside. Their sliced chicken breast is marinated in their signature lemongrass-chili sauce. Vegetarian options include oven-roasted jackfruit glazed in a house barbecue sauce and affectionately dubbed the Jackie Champ. The evolving menu also features Korean-style bulgogi and a new customer favourite: Korean fried chicken in gochujang.
For the perfect sandwich buns, the duo partnered with Azores, a Brampton bakery that has been open for 42 years. The bread is light and airy yet sturdy enough to hold hefty fillings. They also offer pandesal, a Filipino brioche, sourced from a supplier in Scarborough, which adds a unique sweetness to their sandwiches. “A pandesal is something we would usually have in the morning in the Philippines with a bit of butter—we would never put any kind of fillings inside,” says Maderazo. “We decided to reimagine the pandesal as a sandwich vessel, and in all honesty, it just makes sense.”
Southeast Sandwiches, 9200 Weston Rd., unit 21, Woodbridge, southeastsandwiches.ca, @southeastsandwiches
Sort-of Secret: Southeast Sandwiches, a fast-casual spot in Woodbridge serving Vietnamese and Filipino twists on ... - Toronto Life
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