The John Cusack of festival eateries
The $5.20 combo special has fans

By Shinan Govani
National Post

It's not hip. It's not posh. It's not swank or chic or any one of those rosy-red phrases rolled out to describe an of-the-moment restaurant.

No matter. The Green Mango, a modest, cafeteria-style Thai eatery on Yonge Street, is still without the slightest sliver of doubt where the real culinary action is during the Toronto International Film Festival. With neither the calculated cool of the new Club Monaco café or the runaway buzz of Bistro 990 or even the dangled promise of celeb-viewing at the Rosewater Supper Club, it draws in customers faster than you can say "Gwenyth Paltrow sighting."

Its secret weapon? Mouth-watering food at even more mouth-watering prices."

I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of the spicy noodles and lemongrass chicken. I just love it!" says Neal McCauley with typical, exclamation-pointed exuberance.

It's the middle of a busy movie afternoon and McCauley, a festival veteran, has managed to score a seat here in between screenings. No easy task, since every table is teeming with people, and the line waiting to get to the counter stretches all the way back to the door."

I think I've been here six times already," confesses McCauley, as he negotiates a pair of chopsticks around a bowl of noodles.

He's not alone. Just minutes away from many of the theatres showing festival flicks, Green Mango is throbbing pretty much all day and night. The din of film talk regularly fills up the space, painted with orange-and-toffee-coloured swivels and lit with tiny halogen lamps. There's even a line of chairs near the window where diners can look directly out on the throngs of people lining up to get into the Uptown Theatre -- sort of like watching a movie of people trying to get into a movie.

And though the eatery has been a local favourite of both suits and students alike since it first appeared in the early 1990s, its popularity reaches even more dizzying heights during film festival season. This year is particularly busy, as the restaurant recently moved from its original shoebox-sized space to much larger digs across the street.

"I come here all the time because the portions are big and you get to mix and match," says Munira Gangji, a Green Mango aficionado. She's a big fan of the $5.20 combo special that allows you to mix any number of flavoured dishes -- ginger, basil and curry, to name a few -- with your choice of either rice or noodles.

Gangji also notes that while the eatery has sister-restaurants in other parts of the city -- one across from the Eaton Centre, another in Bloor West Village -- they don't compare to the Yonge and Bloor location.

"I don't know," she says. "There's something special about it."

In actor terms, in other words, it's not Tom or Brad or Mel. It's more like Ben Stiller or John Cusack. Not the most famous, not the most glamorous. But the kind that always gives a rock-solid performance and does so with minimum fuss.