September 14th 2012: Ice Skating at Buffone Arena, Worcester

Today, I had plans to go ice skating with my friends at the Buffone Arena in Worcester, starting at 8pm for 2 hours. With time to spare after work, I decided to go try out some Japanese food at Takara Sushi Restaurant in Worcester. Before going there, I decided to take a picture of a Giant beer bottle of Coors Light that has been erected recently atop the new Piccadilly Bar and Grill at 480 Shrewsbury Street which replaces the old Piccadilly Restaurant which closed down.

Giant Beer Bottle atop
Piccadilly Bar and Grill

Although the sign outside for Takara looked promising, the inside was small and disappointing, like the rest of the Millbury Street area which is pretty rundown. I was also the only one in the restaurant. There were some interesting things on the maki menu though, and I got the Screaming Tuna Maki (pineapple, spicy tuna, cucumber wrapped in soybean paper and tuna), and the Hungry Sumo Maki (Tempura soft shell crab, yellowtail, salmon, crabstick, cream cheese, tuna, avocado, wrapped in soybean paper, served with house edamame sauce). They were actually not bad.

Hungry Sumo Maki

Screaming Tuna Maki

When I told the sushi chef I was from Singapore, he immediately got excited and told me about his time in Singapore during the 1970s, where he had escaped to from Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and how much he liked the country.

When the time came, I picked my friend up from her home, and headed to the skating rink. The place is cash only, and I did not have enough to pay the entrance fee of $10 for entrance and skate rental. Thankfully, my friend managed to dig some cash up and we headed in to get our skates. The place was just filled with kids much younger than us, and we were the only Asians there too.

My other friends were already skating in the rink, so we joined them, and had a blast for 2 hours, with me getting a little better at it since the last time I went skating.

After the skating was over, I suggested to the rest to use my Groupon for $20 worth of desserts at Allgos Sweets and Drinks.

This place is more of a bar than a dessert place, complete with a live band. It was pretty full of people when we arrived, although we still managed to find a table.

We decided to go with the Sampler, choosing the White Chocolate Mousse (sponge base, decorated with chocolate flakes), the Pecan Chocolate Torte (natural pastry shell filled with golden pecans and chocolate chunks, served warm with ice cream), the Peanut Butter Cheesecake (filled with peanut butter cups, on a cookie base, topped with chocolate fudge), and the Torta Fresca (tart with chantilly cream, topped with pineapples, kiwis, peaches, strawberries, grapes). On top of that, we also got the Exotic Bomba, made of passion fruit, mango and raspberry sorbetto, covered in a layer of white chocolate, drizzled with chocolate.

White Chocolate Mousse (left), Peanut Butter Cheesecake (right),
Pecan Chocolate Torte (top), Torta Fresca (bottom)

Exotic Bomba

The desserts were really artistic and delicious, I have to say, which I would not have expected from the bar atmosphere. Definitely a good place to go for dessert.

With that, a perfect Friday night of ice skating with friends came to an end.