A dash of football on my pre-birthday night out

-
My birthday week has begun! 

To celebrate it, Nikos, Val, Matty, and I popped into Greenbelt for dinner at Sugi Japanese Restaurant in Greenbelt 2 and to watch the Brazil vs Chile World Cup match. Thank you, guys, for making my birthday week start off with a bang!

Here we go...

With all the options around the area for football watching, we ended up at Burger Bar in Greenbelt 2. The major pull? This restaurant was serving milkshakes, but one milkshake flavour caught my eye. Burger Bar was serving Speculoos Cookie Butter milkshakes!  

Speculoos Cookie Butter Milkshake

I'm a fan of the gingerbread and caramel flavours and of the grainy texture of the Speculoos Cookie Butter bread spread of Trader Joe's... I even eat it straight off the spoon (no bread needed)! It's definitely miles better than peanut butter and chocolate sandwich spreads. So when I saw a milkshake version on the Burger Bar menu, I just had to try it out. 

It was yummy! I can't say that it's better than the sandwich spread but it is definitely one of the best milkshakes I've had in a while. The sweetness was just right and the cinnamon flavour wasn't overpowering (I'm not a big fan of cinnamon). The milkshake was just the right consistency and I couldn't feel any ice chunks... really smooth. Yum yum! The Speculoos-flavoured milkshake may actually be fighting for the top rank with the chocolate cheesecake milkshake I've had at Cheesecakes by Guy in Eastwood. 

With Nikos, Matty, and Val while waiting for the Brazil vs Chile match live broadcast.

At some stage, our attention shifted from the drinks and onto the big screen. With the match airing and the volume turned down low (the other al fresco bars were still open), we had to rely initially on the live Twitter feed and on the comments being posted in the FIFA World Cup app (both via my phone) to understand what was going on. Eventually, my phone died and we turned to Val for his play-by-play comments about who the players were and what clubs they're part of.  He also explained that in case there was a tie, then the game would be extended by 30 minutes (two 15-minutes halves). If there's still a tie, then it would be broken via penalty kicks. Someone had to go home tonight.

World Cup live broadcast over Balls Channel in a few minutes.

It was a long match ending with a 1-1 draw after the both the regular time and the extended time. Brazil won via penalty shoot-out. Overall, it was a really good game to watch. I ended up clapping along with the Brazil supporters in the bar though I was rooting for Chile to win because Chile really fought well. The Brazilians were given a tough time to move up to the next level. 

Biboy, I shall live tweet with you during the next Brazil match. My phone just died last night so I couldn't. Prepare to cry while eating your churros, baby brother.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma
Read more