Two friends are currently in town on vacation. They are rarely in town at the same time. I met one of them in grade 8 and the other in grade 9. All of us know one another, mainly through French and music classes in high school.
One lives in Victoria. The other resides in Hong Kong. I tend to see the former more often. I haven't seen the latter in nearly a decade. Yikes!
We decided to do brunch on Saturday. They wanted to stay in our old neighbourhood of the Beaches. I did a search and found The Porch Light. I asked if they were good with the menu and location. They were. Yay! One of them went ahead and made our reservation.
This eatery is in the upper Beaches. The upper distinction is still odd to me. No one says lower Beaches. Why upper? I describe it as a few blocks away from where my friends and I went to high school.
I got there fifteen minutes early. I parked on Kingswood Road, which is free. I walked over, opened the door, and my friend from Hong Kong was sitting there. Her punctuality hasn't changed. Neither has mine.
We ordered smoothies while waiting for our friend. I got a strawberry banana smoothie. This place offers dairy substitutes, which is great. I went with almond beverage. My friend got the blueberry pomegranate smoothie with milk.
Our friend from Victoria tends to be fashionably late. Again, all of us haven't changed. Perhaps she was ten minutes late, but we were chatting that we didn't even notice.
We all love food. Taking photos of what we are about to eat is normal.
I got the brunch poutine with baked beans. It comes with two poached eggs over home fries, with curds and hollandaise sauce on top. My friend from Victoria was also eyeing this dish, but went with bacon. I would normally do bacon, but I had overdosed on it the other night when I ordered a double-patty burger with tons of bacon.
Our other friend got the Porch Light burger, which came with smoked cheddar, aioli, arugula, pickled onions, with a side of fries. It's off the lunch menu.
It's a lovely, casual atmosphere here. My friend noticed that this place is affiliated with Bud's Coffee Bar on Queen Street East, across from where I went to elementary school. Her phone automatically connected to the wifi, so the password and wifi name are the same at both places as. Nice!
Our meals came fairly quickly. The kitchen is in the basement.
I loved my meal. The home fries were done perfectly. There were lots of cheese curds and the hollandaise sauce was so smooth. Part of me wanted the poached eggs to be more runny, as the dish came with two crispy slices of toast that would be perfect for dipping. I typically don't like overly runny eggs, with poached eggs as an exception. However, it worked fine putting my eggs on my toast the way that they were. The baked beans were great embedded in everything.
They both enjoyed their food. My friend commented hours after we had eaten here that she was still stuffed after eating cheesy potatoes. She summed it up nicely.
We sat here for three hours, catching up on our lives. Our server was so nice to take a photo of us. She let us know that she handles the business's Instagram account. She was great and so helpful.
The washrooms are downstairs. There are two and are unisex. They were clean. The kitchen is right next door. I got to see the chefs in action while I was briefly downstairs.
This place is awesome! I love the dairy alternatives available with their drinks. The food is incredibly delicious and creative. I'm a fan. It's a special place in our old neighbourhood.
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