Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Perfect Porridge

So Benn and I went to Caffé Cortilé in Block place on Saturday for a late breakfast. While we waited for our food we entertained ourselves by sending random Bluetooth messages to other Saturday morning breakfasters commenting on their coffee and asking what food was good to order. I never knew this game existed. It’s good having tech nerds as friends.

Benn ordered the Eggs Atlantic, which looked to me like a small serve for $13.50 but he said they were very good and the balance of Hollandaise and Balsamic was just right.

I had my usual – Porridge – and by God, I think I’ve found porridge paradise.
The porridge usually comes prepared with water and cream but I asked for my usual Skim Milk and the flavour didn’t suffer in the least.
It was served HOT. This seems to a basic element of porridge preparation that is just too hard for most eateries to comprehend.
It was a perfect grainy consistency – still rough and oat-like and neither too soupy nor Clag glue-like.
The berry compote was sweet and warm (thank God someone understands that this is essential).
It was sweetened with Vanilla Honey! Did you get that? Vanilla Honey! Sweet god of culinary goodness.

The café is in a cute, covered alleyway but is itself neither cute nor particularly cool. The clientele were mostly upper middles with some young trendies thrown in for colour. Benn and I were probably the coolest people in the place but, to be honest, what Caffé Cortilé lacks in eliteness it makes up for in its mastery of The Porridge (I may love the dirty, dingy mess that is Degraves but you couldn’t pay me to eat the soupy slop they try to pass off as porridge). At $8.50 a pop it errs on the side of expensive but, once again, the quality makes it a reasonable sum to part with. Just don’t ask for Diet Coke too or you’ll be walking out $12.40 poorer.

2 comments:

edith said...

Try maple syrup. For reals.

Sharky said...

Porridge huh??? Is Ben the itsy bitsy spider??? No talking spiders eh???? Some porridge story.... *pretends to be mad crossing arms & stomping foot*