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I’m not a political eater. I save that sort of thing for zombies who have a taste for presidents. And a group of close ‘comida-ing’ compatriots who have allowed me an ethnographic window into the realm of urbane coffee connoisseurship. It’s made me somewhat skeptical about what good coffee is, because aside from not knowing, nor having the cultivation, or a democratic cup from which to measure all quality of coffee, I don’t think you can really come to any logical conclusion. Besides, I have what all good food pundits have: perspective. If I’m satisfied with the flavor of something, I reckon, assuming I paid for its preparation, that it was money well spent. I dare not try one thing and say nothing is better having not tried everything. Nor do I try some, come to a conclusion about one thing from one group and then never venture out in search of other, potentially better opuses. If I did that, would I write about sushi place after sushi place? Or vegan place after vegan place? Of course I wouldn’t. You’re a lucky bunch of readers. Or maybe it’s me who’s lucky for having such patient, understanding listeners.
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| Damn. |
My hankerings for coffee knowledge led me to Café Pyrus; a site that brews, I was told, pretty decent coffee. But I couldn’t really tell you about it in this review, because although they had a cool espresso machine with levers covered by rubber snake puppets and octopus tentacles, organic and fair trade coffee, and organic fair trade coffee, I paid the common cup no mind, immediately diverted by the fact that Café Pyrus is a vegan café (cue dramatic movie sound effect). Surely, the space itself was a dead giveaway: recycled furniture, plywood used as canvases for graffiti art, plastic plants, an array of board games, reggae music, novelty skull containers, tattoos. You know, the kind of edginess that makes veganism paradoxically dangerous and therefore appealing to those railing against some kind of parental authority. How else can you start a movement with a foundation based on the idea of healthy eating, essentially underpinned by the inner dialogues of our parents who force fed us health food as children and therefore made the idea seem anti-youth and un-cool because there were no trans-fats and designer pizzas? And why would I have even given it a second glance having judged it so well? Why would I see the sly idea of an iced Americano on the chalk board menu (yeah, chalkboard) and think to myself, “I have to try this because I’ve never seen anyone else do it- sure it’s novel, but whatever.” Maybe because I’m a fool. Maybe because Café Pyrus could very well be the deliverer of all vegan restaurants I’ve been to. It was cheap, it had good options. Salads with tempeh and chard, quesadillas, burritos, avocado sandwiches (an ingredient doing poorly in the place this summer because it was never ripe- so the attendant told me) and novelties like the Justin Bieber: a grilled cheese with cheesiness I suspect so overwhelming it borrowed the poor kid’s name. Not to mention the coffee, and obvious addendum to such in such a place: baked goods. From muffins to scones to gluten free cookies. Uh oh, gluten.
Sorely disappointed by the avocado shortage, I gave choice to the black bean burrito, stuffed with basmati rice, onions (red, white and green), cumin and red pepper, and adorned with pickle and micro greens. But I wasn’t done there, I asked for that iced Americano hoping for something unexpected, and gave a fair try to the baked goods: one mint vanilla cupcake, one gluten-free peanut butter cookie and one ‘Samoas’ cookie bigger than my already tiny palms.
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If there was anything obvious about my burrito it was the taste of white onion and cumin, an expected characteristic of something otherwise so well known. The basmati rice allowed for a nice level of nuttiness but fell short of being cooked properly (so my two years of boiling rice in a Thai restaurant has taught me). I’m not a fan of bite in rice; however, that said, rice being cooked to a point of stodginess isn’t something I accept either. It’s a hard food to navigate. And if I wasn’t so well versed in eating I might have confused the grains of vegan cheese for the white grains themselves, the poor cheese not having enough time to melt in the plentiful wrap.
A vegan sour cream was given to moderate any dryness the burrito might have had, though that wasn’t a problem. The cream’s grainy, saltless disposition gave nothing to the dish. The flavor of cumin only seemed redundant and the lack of salt in my dipping sauce and burrito lead me to wonder if the mythos of healthiness that permeated vegan cuisine resulted in a crusade against salt. Either that or I’ve been cooking under the tutelage of my uncle for so long that I’ve come to also believe in the trinity of Romano, salt and cured meat.
I’m bold enough to say that Café Pyrus’ pastries are its dark horse. I was a cynic ordering them in the first place, disqualifying them as probably dry and cardboard passing as rolled oats. But I was wrong. Though the vanilla cupcake was expectedly dry, its vegan butter-cream frosting, infused with vanilla beans and mint leaves was full of flavor. Sure, oils oozed out which made it seem a little slimy, and the mint, ground into its cream, turned black, but its taste, surprisingly, wasn’t compromised. And not only were the cookies saddled with ingredients, but they maintained a caliber of chewiness. If I had known vegan baking could be so delicious, I would have disqualified butter and eggs a long time ago.
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Cafe Pyrus
(519) 954 7705
16 Charles Street,
Kitchener, ON n2g 1h2
Mon: 8:00 am - 7:00 pm
Tues - Fri: 8:00 am - 8:00 pm Sat: 9:00 am - 7:00 pm Sun: 10:30 am - 6:30 pm
All methods of payment
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