Gastro tour post match report:
1. Taiko prematch beers - OUTSTANDING. Great atmosphere, great beer, great times.
2. Beer at Eden Park - APPALLING. We brought too much of the evil gaseous rubbish too through a lack of coordination as to who was doing what at half time. Really struggled through them in the second half.
3. Taiko Post match beers - Freakin' fantastic! Back in the drinkable/enjoyable zone. Some good food available but passed as we were heading to Mekong Neua for dinner.
4. Mekong Neua - Saturday night dinner. Food - off the charts (as usual there). New Zealand's best fresh spring rolls, and Thallay Ja - is there a better starter known to man? The mains were unbelievable - the 4 of us had 2 Fantastic whole snappers (1 x Larb and 1 x Chilli fried), Yum Sam Grob and the Gaeng Pee Mow (Braised Duck in whisky). Multiple Large Beer Lao bottles were just the accompanyment...
5. Then off to Foxes. I am sure I bumped into a bunch of people there. Who? Can't honestly say. The Macs Gold were slipping down, but slipping down with some difficulty later on. At the point where we relaised that conversation was no longer possible, or even desirable we decided it would sensible to retreat back to our hotel. Lordy.
6. Went to St Heliers Bay for brunch at Moretons. GOOD GRIEF - they serve the best Bruschetta IN THE WORLD. And their Big breakfast was outstanding. Their Wild Pork Sausages were something else. The coffee their was the nectar of the gods... three just about got us back on an even keel. The service was simply brilliant too.
7. The ice cream on the beach sitting under the Pohutukawa trees is to be recommended for an early afternoon recovery session.
So Auckland did itself very very proud. I am off the hook after Craig set the bar so high with Ciciolinas in St Kilda. Mekong Neua has raised the bar and it's back to him for the next away trip.
The game? Meh. Relieved it wasn't a 1 - 0 loss in the end, and the crowd was muted, sterile, but reasonably sized. Best laugh of the weekend was coming around the corner from Taiko and seeing the MASSIVE queues of Aucklanders wanting to buy tickets 20 minutes before kick off. Muppets.
Flew up on the same flight as Terry and had a chat to him as we were waiting to disembark. We was looking forward to Eden Park but estimated the result was a 50/50 proposition... knows a thing or two about the Nix does our Terry.
Flight home was unremarkable. Boy was I rooted though.
Incredible stamina. No shame. Yellow Fever.
Phoenix fans. We have to win them over one fan at a time.
"Phoenix till they lose"
