Philz Coffee

-
Anna and I took some time off from studying (me for the driver's license knowledge test; her for the NCLEX) because it's July 4th. We took the BART to Rockridge, a district in Oakland. As we were walking, we realised that many of the shops were closed! Of course, it's a holiday so everyone's not at work! There were only a handful of places open but we hadn't worked up our appetites yet, so we walked further down the road until the temperature dipped below 20ºC. 

That's when we opted to stop by one of the places Anna frequents: Philz Coffee. The interior of the café is similar with the other coffee shops we've already been to: a mix of rich wooden browns give a warmth to the otherwise cold ambiance lent by the black and the greys of the steel and the cement. But what made this particular branch interesting were the light fixtures: instead of the retro globe-like light bulbs that has become the norm (like in Siento Café), Philz used the long lamps and arranged them in a crisscross manner. 


The menu is also helpful for people who couldn't decide what to drink. Instead of just the name of the drink, the menu includes descriptions of the shop's offerings. For instance, lighter blends have fruity profiles; the medium blends have more of the sweet aromatic caramel tones; and the darker blends emphasise the scents of heavy spices and smoke. 

I don't like coffee, though, so I opted for iced chocolate... yes, despite the cold! 


Because the store was closing, Anna and I ended up sipping our iced beverages outside. It reminded me of eating lunch outdoors in UQ in winter; it was cold, sunny, and there were a lot of pigeons around. But this was an unexpectedly cold summer evening in Rockridge, hence we decided to walk around a bit more. I guess I still need to get acclimatised with this weather.

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...
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