January 5, 2025 | Awake & Dreaming

The coffee culture has been improving a whole lot in Kochi and the opening of a new coffee place is always a huge welcome. Gone are the days when it was just two kinds of coffee – black and with milk – to a couple of individual fast food joints that served us a latte, an espresso and black coffee. We now have several cafes that can serve you really good lattes cappuccino, mocha lattes, mocha cappuccinos, coffee with caramel & whipped cream, with hazelnuts or vanilla etc etc.

And now we have a standalone cafe called Bean Barrel which is located on the Queen’s walkway in Ernakulam. Well, it’s a food truck but I think they are planning on starting a full fledged cafe – or atleast that’s what it seems like on looking at their website, which is not yet fully launched. It’s serves coffee – different types, some colas which seems to be their recipe, some fruit flavoured popsicles and popcorn (cheese/salt/caramel). We don’t have many food trucks infact maybe less than 10 so I hope they do well.

Joao Pedro scored a second-half penalty to dent Arsenal’s title hopes as the Gunners were held to a draw by Brighton. Arsenal went ahead in the 16th minute through Ethan Nwaneri, who was starting just his second match in the Premier League. The 17-year-old was involved in a clever move with Mikel Merino and Declan Rice before firing a shot that squirmed past goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen and found the far corner. Arsenal dominated as they looked to build a bigger lead, and they were to pay for not taking their chances when Pedro struck from the spot just after the hour.

The penalty was awarded for an unusual incident when Pedro flicked the ball up and William Saliba, in attempting to nod it away, made contact with the head of the Brazilian forward who went to ground. The foul was checked and confirmed by the video assistant referee, who deemed there was sufficient contact for a penalty and Pedro then sent David Raya the wrong way to level the scores. It could have got worse for Arsenal after that, with Brighton substitute Yankuba Minteh curling wide from inside the area when well placed.

The result leaves Arsenal five points behind leaders Liverpool with Mikel Arteta’s side having played two games more. Arsenal manager Arteta had to rotate his squad, with Kai Havertz missing through illness and captain Martin Odegaard also suffering and only well enough for substitute duty. The Gunners are already trying to deal with the loss of Bukayo Saka who is out of action with a serious hamstring injury, yet they had by far the better of the opening stages of this game.