Post the Christmas excesses I though something a bit lighter (not shorter, of course) review wise would be welcome. So here are my musings on a place doing breakie/light lunch (some call it brunch, I don’t) options.

I had to go into town (Cardiff city centre) the Saturday before Christmas, can still be referred to as we are within the 12 days of Christmas, mainly because I am a tight git. I reasoned that rather than spend £8.95 on delivery for my cheese from Ty Caws I would go into town (spending £3.40 on the train in and out and I was then in town for over an hour and a half, thus effectively valuing an hour of my life at a mere £3.70 before discounting the further cost of eating out after the trauma of town, which would not have occurred if I had had the cheese delivered).

In my defence I had to finish off my Christmas shopping, having to fight through the masses in John Lewis, M&S and Hotel Chocolat to name but a few. Whilst I was laser focused, with a list in hand from Mrs. SF least I should forget anything ( I, of course, initially forgot the list and had to go back and get it) in terms of what I wanted, the same could not be said for a significant proportion of said masses, with the chronic ditherers and maddingly undecided out in full force on that day. Think the Walking Dead, but with a compulsion to not to bite people but rather to irritate them to death by randomnly stopping in the middle of the pavement/arcade/road etc. as often as possible for absolutely no decernable reason. Spatial.awareness seems to die in the run up to Christmas.

As a result by the time I was finished I was edging ever closer to full on “get the flamethrower out” rage and thus needed a haven to chill out for a bit, away from the madding crowd, prior to facing the train back home.

This “haven from shopping hell” was provided by a newish place behind the station (on Trade Street) called Pori.

Decent looking breakfast menu,

with some rather nice aromas coming from the open kitchen.

My gaze was drawn to the huevos section on the menu and, in particular, the rarebit hock (£11) with me envisaging a sort of  Mexicana open croque madame type affair.

What arrived was a decent looking beast,

with 2 nicely runny egg (if I had a minor quibble it would be the eggs not being  “puntilla“, lacking that desirable crispy frilly edge).

The pork was nicely flavoured and tender, with the cider rarebit topping providing a pleasing tangy counterpoint to the richness of the ham hock. Red veined sorrel added a further hit of lemony tang.

This all sat on a 12 inch tortilla, which was cooked nicely. Crisp, but not too crispy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this dish,

which was just the job after battling the zombie masses in town prior to Christmas.

On the drinks front they don’t seem to have a menu, with the server (in answer to my query as to what drinks were available) saying he could tell me if they had what I wanted hot drink wise. I said a cortado (the king of coffees), which was no problem.

My issue with this is I had absolutely no idea as to how much it was going to cost (more on that later), which was a little frustrating. 

Back to the coffee itself,

this was a well made drink with the coffee rich and full of fruit flavours. Importantly, it was properly hot. All to often, in my experience, the more all singing and dancing the coffee machine the more likely the result will be a rather tepid drink (which I hate), but luckily no such issues here. The only actual issue with the fact the coffee was hot, was the lack of a handle on the cup (the trend of which I fail to understand as the handle has a very valid and, in my view, necessary function when the drink in the cup is steaming hot).

The verdict

I rather enjoyed my late breakfast/early lunch at Pori, with a solid, well flavoured offering in the form of my huevos rarebit hock dish and a rather good coffee.

Pricing is a bit weird, with (as mentioned earlier) no upfront details for the price of drinks.

With an automatically added 10% service charge (you pay at the till and can vary it should you so wish –  services was good so I was happy enough with the 10%) the bill came to a rather strange £15.61.

Now my maths isn’t great but by my crude calculations you get the base cost (taking off the added 10%) by dividing the £15.61 by 1.10. That gets you to the rather odd figure of £14.19 before tip is added. As the huevos dish was £11, that makes the coffee seemingly quite oddly priced at £3.19.

Notwithstanding the drinks pricing oddity, this place made for a nice haven close to the train station, away from the bedlam of town.

The lunch menu also looks pretty good,

but again what are the prices? I had to look on line to find these

but would say they seem pretty reasonable by Cardiff standards.

I do, however, find it a tad odd that the steak sarnie is cheaper than the huevos rancheros. Maybe it is my lack of understanding of pricing, but surely the based cost of a bit of bavette steak, caramelised onions and gouda in bread would be a fair bit more than that of  peppers, tomatoes and avocado on a flour tortilla (same goes for the reuben)? As such the rancheros being £1 more than the steak sarnie (and the reuben) slightly surprised me.

On the comfort stakes, I did make a mistake in sitting on the side counter rather than at a table, as the stools

are a very weird design.

They are really deep, but with a very low back. Everytime I tried to leaned back, so as to get some support for my aching back, I was in fear of flipping over the back of the stool. As such, I was constantly hunched forward which wasn’t very comfortable. I would ditch these for something with a higher back.

With the Brain brewery development pretty much across the road, this looks to me to be a rather shrewd bit of positioning. With the office crowd in the area too,  you would expect them to do pretty well if they can hang in there until the Brains development is populated.

The details

Address: 4 Trade Street, Cardiff  CF10 5DQ

Website: Don’t seem to have one, but they are on Itsamaaaazingram (from which I gathered it wouldn’t disappoint and everything would be insanely good, as in best evah and totally banging, such that I would be properly obsessed after my visit! Editor: he wasn’t, but he thought it nice enough).

https://www.instagram.com/pori.cardiff?igsh=dHU0aXV2NWVzZ2lo