Waking up at HiVolt

Some days, like today, I must rise at an hour where one would normally find me snoozing away merrily in bed. On these unfortunate days, I need a healthy overdose of caffeine. Not too long ago, my good friend Anne and I visited a great place for a coffee infusion, especially early in the morning.

Opened a few months ago by Benji Lee (who also owns The Saint just down the road), HiVolt Coffee is a cool new cafe situated on a funky corner at St. Mary and Sophie Wright Place. The cafe is housed in a building that once was a seafood restaurant and the cool porthole windows still remain. HiVolt has a modern, sleek and clean design on the inside, making it highly inviting and not too focused on catering to one group of coffee snobs or another.

Anne was following a paleo diet at the time and the folks at HiVolt were happy to accommodate. They used almond milk in her Chai while I ordered a delicious cappuccino (with whole milk) brewed from Counter Culture Coffee. We sat down, sipped our beverages and waited patiently for our orders to arrive.

Anne got a Chimi Beef Salad, mixed greens and tomatoes topped with slow-roasted chuck, a perfectly poached egg and lots of chimichurri sauce. I chose their simple house salad with mixed greens, avocado, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and a tasty quinoa spinach cake served on the side. Everything was so fresh and scrumptious, we gobbled the salads gleefully and moved on to a couple of sweets.

Anne chose an interesting seed bar bound by raw honey and I tried a gluten-free, Mexican Chocolate donut, simply because I didn't believe it was possible. Although the donut was rather dry, the spicy chocolate flavor was all there and I had no trouble washing it down with my coffee. Anne's seed bar turned out to be fabulous, crunchy and sweet, yet far more filling than either of us imagined.