One2Snacks is the very definition of a hole in the wall.

It occupies a space so small that you'd be hard pressed to comfortably fit more than a handful of people inside. Outside, the faded blue sign is cracked and peeling, obscuring the words "Authentic Malaysian Food."

Its small size does not deter Howard Tam, owner of Eat More Scarborough Food Tours, from bringing his group to taste what he calls "the most authentic Malaysian flavours in Toronto." The laksa, a curry-based soup made by owner Brian Choy and his family, is a particular favourite.

"Brian's dad comes from Kuala Lumpur and a lot of these dishes are actually based on his memory of what he had when he was a little kid," Howard says. "They're trying to recreate that tradition."

We are in Agincourt, a neighbourhood in north Scarborough where stories of migration, memory and culture are often told through food. Restaurants serving cuisine from across Asia fill the strip malls and plazas along the busy streets.

Chinese-owned businesses began opening here in the late 1970s, with the community growing rapidly through the 1980s. In 1984, the Dragon Centre opened in a converted roller-skating rink, becoming North America's first indoor Chinese mall and helping spur a wave of Chinese malls and plazas across Agincourt.

"The community has gotten so diverse now. You don't just get Chinese food. You can ask what region," Howard says. "Are you talking about Taiwanese? Are you talking about Shanghainese? Are you talking about Hong Kong?"

Howard grew up in Agincourt (pronounced age-in-court, or, as Howard jokes, Asian-court) and knows these plazas well. He created Eat More Scarborough to draw attention to the independent restaurants in his hometown and encourage more people to make the trip here. He's recently teamed up with Scarborough Arts to launch Destination Scarborough, designed to showcase the best of the district's culture, art, community, and, of course, food.

At night, the parking lots take on a different energy. Howard runs evening food tours through the neighbourhood, where some plazas feel almost like a tailgate party, with people gathering outside long after dark.

There is an element of if you know, you know to the plaza culture. One plaza has 15 bubble tea shops. Another has an entire shop filled with giant claw machines. And behind storefronts that can look fairly nondescript from the road are restaurants serving food tied to very specific places and traditions across Asia.

Back at One2Snacks, Howard has set up a makeshift serving table outside in a small alcove in the strip mall and is ladling the laksa, a rich and fragrant curry-based noodle broth, filled with chicken and fish balls, into small bowls. Since the tiny shop has little to no indoor space, we eat outside, standing up, taking in the nondescript brown-brick exterior of the Dynasty Centre.

The plaza has retained its post-war suburban architecture, the kind of place you could easily drive past without a second glance.

For dessert, Howard introduces us to one of his favourites: pineapple buns and award-winning milk tea at Marathon Donuts and Coffee, a Hong Kong-style cafe.

"For those of you who don't know, Hong Kong style food is like an amalgamation of Western, specifically British food traditions, mixed with a lot of Eastern Chinese traditions," Howard says. "The milk tea comes from the tradition of British people having tea time, but because they didn't have a lot of fresh milk in Hong Kong, it wasn't easily accessible, they used canned, evaporated milk."

Marathon Donuts and Coffee is itself an amalgamation of cultures. Today, it operates as a cha chaan teng, a Hong Kong-style café, but its name dates back to the previous owners, a Greek family who called it Marathon.

The tea is rich, strong and creamy, while the pineapple buns feature a thick crust and are served with a big slab of butter inside.

The bun, Howard says, has roots in Mexico's conchas, which are buns with a hard sugar crust on top.

"There was a very large Chinese community in Mexico," Howard says, telling the story of workers who built railways and farmed land before being kicked out and sent back to China. "It is a really sad story, but what came out of it, though, is a lot of these Mexican Chinese were trying to remake a concha but didn't have the ingredients, so we got a derivative of it."

Interestingly, there is no pineapple in a pineapple bun. The name comes from the look of it, which is reminiscent of the fruit's outer shell.

By the end of the tour, we've eaten our way through only a tiny part of Scarborough. Howard wants people to come here, pull into the plazas they might otherwise pass, order something they haven't tried before and ask where the flavours come from.

For Howard, these places have always been part of home. His food tours are simply an invitation to stop in and take a closer look.