Pouridge
Update: Pouridge is now located at 1054 Eglinton Ave West.
Pouridge is a cafe with a simple menu focused on homemade porridge and pourover coffee. The entire space is simple and minimalist, mainly outfitted in white.
Picnic benches and a retro Nintendo system in a cabinet give the place a fun vibe.
David Ehrentreu and Jonathan Riaboy are running the cafe, constructing their own pourover devices from YouTube videos and Kalita coffee drippers.
They’re working with some of the best roasters in the city to provide customers with de Mello Palheta and Propeller blends and trying to ensure they only serve single origin beans.
A cup of this extraordinary pourover costs $3.25 and takes several minutes to brew, so make sure you’ve got the time and cash.
Homemade porridge ($6.75) is steel cut oats topped with a range of healthy or indulgent toppings. Blueberry compote, deliciously crunchy and sweet tarte tatin style apples, almonds, chia, flax and sunflower seeds are just some of what's available here.
Or, get one topped with banana, coconut, dulce de leche, cocoa nibs, chia, flax, organic granola and thick, tart homemade Icelandic yogurt.
In the mood for a bowl of yogurt? You can get that too. This one is flavoured with blueberry and mixed with muesli ($6.75). The base is sour but it's sweetened by the house pickled blueberry, and we add a little banana in there as well.
All the yogurt and porridge combinations are assembled in front of you at an open station, making for optimal transparency.
For lunch or an afternoon snack there's also the soup of the day. On this day, it's a deliciously creamy yet lusciously thin tomato buttermilk soup. Chunks of raggedy, sweet tomato swim in the oily, flavourful broth, bringing bites of substance to this humble lunch.
Unexpected risotto ($6.75) is also simple but very delicious, the perfect consistency blended with the perfect amount of cheese (a lot). Connections are starting to form here: all the menu items are humble, warming and simple.
There’s a giant window near the front and the logo of the place in string lights, an O with a slash. Overall it’s a well-lit space for a quick nosh or pleasant stop for a well-made coffee.
Hector Vasquez