Do you eat a lot at Starbucks?

I ask the question because I eat at Starbucks more than the average person (or so I believe). I passed by the Insular branch and borrowed their in-store binder that contains nutritional information of every food they serve in the store.

I noted down the calorie counts of food I regularly eat / or was curious to know the calorie count of. I tend to eat their bread products, sandwiches and cookies and stay away from their cakes. So the list below is incomplete, but it might reveal some interesting nuggets for you to consider.

I thought it was a shocker at how many calories some of these "vegetarian" and "whole grain" products have relative to things which have dairy, sugar, etc.. Labels can be deceptive.

I should double check that indeed a wholewheat croissant has more calories than the ham and cheese croissant.

Item	Calories
Sausage Roll	706
Banoffee Pie	685
Jamaican Pie "vegetarian"	682
Chicken Mango Wrap	651
Chicken Parmesan on Turkish Pide	528
Chicken Ham Gruyere Sandwich	509
Country Vegetable Pie	495
Italian Pocket Pie	467
Turkey, Chicken Tuscan on Sundried Tomato Foccacia	453
Bacon Twist	423
Cinnamon Swirl	420
Espresso Brownie	392
Cinnamon Roll	376
Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar	370
Egg Tomato Spinach Wrap	361
Wholewheat Croissant	354
Ensaymada	349
Cornbeef Pandesal	328
Banana and Chocochip Muffin with Splenda	324
Ham and Cheese Croissant	322
Chicken Empanada	316
Tuna pandesal	308
Chicken Pandesal	307
Quiche	304
Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookie	303
Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookie	279
Coffee Brownie	271
Honey Glazed Doughnut	257
Multigrain Bagel	246
Spring Vegetable and Ham Crepe	197
Strawberry and Peach Danish	166
Choco Walnut Brownie	156

Murphy's Pub Quiz Night

It's not hard to find me on a Tuesday night. Murphy's Pub Quiz Night has become such a stable part of my week's routine, that friends know better than to schedule movies or dinner on Tuesday. Occasionally, work colleagues inquire on Wednesday mornings how our team did the night previous. The past few months Quiz Night has taken on a new texture, because regulars, such as our team, increasingly share space with younger teams.

For the most part, our team, a namesake of this blog, is comprised of a couple of late twenty-somethings and early to mid thirty-somethings. The "new blood" are early to mid twenty-somethings, and it's always fun to see these new faces. Our (obnoxious?) team has a new audience, and usually there will be at least a couple of familiar faces across the room. Soon we might have a real Cheers scenario on our hands.

* * *

I've started feeling useful again. The previous weeks I had be contributing very little by way of answers to the quiz questions. Last night, I was able to contribute more, and the teammates were as always appreciative.

There was a some fuss last night (and I admit I was a party to this ) over the attendance at quiz night of a certain wholesome basketball player from Ateneo. And sue me for almost gushing, but it did make the proceedings a little cooler.

* * *

A couple of weeks ago, two of our team members came up with the questions for the quiz. We received a particularly hilarious answer to a question about fashion.

Question: This Filipina fashion designer designed the wedding gown of Britney Spears. Clue: think pawnshops.

Answer: Tara Tambunting.

Edited to include the correct answer: Monique Lhullier.

Cubao Expo

I spent most of Saturday at Cubao Expo, the wonderful quirky pocket of Cubao that I hope the 'popular kids' will never discover en masse.

I am not concerned about posting about it here, because those kids do not read my blog. I no longer hang-out at Distillery along Rizal Drive because the pop-kids have discovered it. My aversion to them is not in their fashion, their slenderness, or in the fact that most of their cultural horizons never extend beyond anything more than ten years old (Ok, I exaggerate). But I do not appreciate how they cannot hold on to their liquor. I am a self-aware judgmental person on this because, as an earlier post of mine has mentioned, we have the genetic disposition to drink a lot.

The main reason I was there was the invitation to check out Outerhope, who I haven't seen perform in ages. They played their set on the 2nd floor of one of the shops, in a rather newly-opened place called My Apartment. The novelty with this venue is that you can watch the band up close (all 10 of you) on the 2nd floor, or you can stand on the street and watch them from the open windows. The buzz I heard that evening was that the bands sound better outside. My appreciation of this type of venue is that since it is 'intimate' it allows the band members to start telling a couple of interesting stories. I enjoyed Mic's (pianist/vocalist of OH) story of how a cancelled gig at Mag:net high street gave birth to a 'Living Room' set in their apartment -- comprised of all the displaced bands that evening.

My plan was to leave once Outerhope was done, but I ended up sticking around to watch Ciudad, the next band on queue. The fun and friendly vibe stuck to me and I ended up spending several more hours with Mic and brother Mike.

* * *

Cubao is one of Manila's districts that are full of stories. As it is a major node of this city's transport network, everyone is going somewhere, and people still walk its streets at 4am. There are nooks that still contain the freaks, the very bad fashion, and the surprises.

La Regalade

I finally ate at La Regalade on Friday night, after weeks of texts to Tanya promising to do so. Like many good plans, the visit was hatched on a slow Friday afternoon, and all it took was a short SMS to trusty JL to set up a 730 pm dinner.

JL managed to round up seven of us. Not forty-five seconds into my seat, Tanya approached. She recommended the duck burger, and I agreed that that was what I was going to eat for dinner.

The food was good, and the service was better. After dinner, four of us decided to have the chocolate tart. I decided on the tarte tatin. My dessert was good, but it was the tart that was, indeed, the correct choice. It remained at the back of my head for the remainder of the evening.

We went for drinks at La Cabane further down Pasay Road. I was glad that my friends liked the interior. The service was okay, and the drinks were unremarkable. I don't think I'll be back soon, but it is a pretty place, and has a lot of expats, if that's the sort of scene you're into. I thought how much nicer Martini's would be, but also noted that drinks would also be three times more expensive.

It was still too early to go home, and in Manila that means that it's time for . . . more drinks. We went to Grilla's for the sub-zero beer, and we ordered yummy ground pig parts aka Sisig. The music was total dance club type and too loud -- which was really appropriate. After a few more beers, we went home.

Sunday night

Mahar and I spoke about how we should be more outspoken about what we want as customers. I agree with him. I think that there are tons of services out there where we are offered things that service offerers think are important to us, but actually are not. These are thoughts percolating in my head when someone tried to share me some membership in a hotel club type scheme. I know, sounds like one of those tiresome marketing things right? Well, I sat through a painful two hour discussion, but was patient coz the point was to get the free 3 days - 2 nights stay at one of their hotels. I got them and I'll probably even be able to use them.

Courtesy of our trivia night largesse, had Sunday roast tonight at Murphy's. The lamb was. . .substantial. I wish they just seasoned it better. The desserts were very good, especially the apple pie. Homey food at Murphy's along Esteban, very near the Rufino corner.

The weekend was un-eventful. But I think I am quite ready for the coming week which promises to be quite busy. I'm looking forward to it.

* * *

unfortunately this weekend also included seeing videos and images of people in Tehran having been beaten or even shot by their own security forces. a silent prayer for the people in Iran standing up for their freedom.

Saturday morning

Last post, I wrote that the upcoming week I had to write a report. Well, that's exactly what I did, and it occupied most of my time. I didn't go the gym at all, which is a semi-big deal to me. But when I manage to get good work done, I don't really care. I've been wanting to do a good job for a while now. So worked many hours on the report, and it has been going through a process of continuous refinement which gives me confidence that it will turn out well and polished. Getting the support of various members of the advisory group also helps very much. We're even getting someone to lay this one out for me. (Oh thank you, thank you really). One other thing I wanted to share was that I am confident about all the data in this one. All of it, even the controversial parts that people are going to perhaps bitch about when they see it. That makes me feel strongly about this. So what all this rambling's point was: yes, I spent a lot of time on this and I'm happy so far with the progress and output.

And as if the week wasn't a good enough one yet, I was staffed into a new project, that perhaps will take me to Cebu and Zamboanga later this year. That rocks.

I'm in a good mood.

The morning and afternoon is a scorcher and poor Namee was sweating a lot. She attributes this to her higher body tempature because of all that yoga. Perhaps that is the reason. I ate some food with Nams and her family; there was some Thai vegetarian salad (which might have had dog-hair in it, i know, yuck right). But I tried to forget about that. I ate some of the "nice french food", which market regulars know who we're talking about. It was just a tuna and vegetable sandwich but the bread was substantial and tasty. La Cuisine Francaise is opening a restaurant in Salcedo Village. It will be the space in Paseo Park View, just across Apartment 1-B. Sedeno Street now has those 2 and Terry's on it. Nice new attraction for the neighborhood. I hope it does well.

Finishing up some of Fellini-Satyricon before I go out to do some running. It's just too hot to go out now.

June weekend

Malakas kami uminom sa pamilya. That's my conclusion, since I practically drank an entire bottle of wine for myself last night, during a friendly home mahjong game, and was none worse the wear. Mahar, Gica and I have been introducing the game to the debate society, including Chinese friends who seem to have a lost a little something of their cultural heritage for not knowing the game. My hypothesis is that their parents wanted to insulate them from the culture of throwing tiles and fighting with each other over lost games. In our case anyway, we play an 'old-ladies' game where we play for little or no money, and the fun is in the tactile handling of the tiles as the game is played. We played from 5pm to around 1030pm. Time flies when you play mahjong.

* * *

I'm reading this old book now, a Ruth Reichl book called 'Comfort Me With Apples'. I much prefer it to her later book 'Garlic and Sapphires'. In the latter book, she was already an established restaurant critic, and the writing was about her journey as a writer for the New York Times. This one focuses more on her life as it transition from her Berkeley counterculture life to that of a hopelessly bourgeois restaurant critic. I feel pangs of sadness in the first few pages (and it's raining outside too, that doesn't help) because I already can tell that she's going to be leaving her husband before this book is over.

* * *

I spoke to Cris today, part of my dad's other family, and was reminded that she was quite the runner in HS and College. She ran marathons and did excellent times. She called my 10K time slow (which I'm not too concerned about). But I will be sticking to my 3x a week training, and won't take her suggestions (just yet) of running almost everyday, and at minimum distances of 10K-- as training for my half marathon later this year. No thanks. But I'm glad that we talked about running anyway. It used to be her dream to run the Boston or NY marathon. I don't know if I'll get that far, but I'd like to eventually run a marathon out of the country. Like in Berlin or some far away place where the weather is cooler.

* * *

A new week is coming up, and I have to write a report.