Discovered this gem in Upper Weld Road by accident sometime in the third week of December.
A friend had suggested lunch at Serangoon Road and he had asked his PA to pick a place. She went on the internet and chose this restaurant. Both of us didn’t know this place and we arrived there around 1220 and to our dismay it was packed inside with a huge crowd waiting outside to get in. My friend attempted to pull some strings to cut the queue but with no success. Later I found out that the restaurant had just opened on 12 December.
Since then I have been there a few times now with various friends and the food is wonderful and reasonably priced. Even had my pongal vegetarian lunch there.
Was there having lunch today as well. Hope they maintain their standard of service and food!!
Unfortunately I think my friend who had initially suggested this place still has not tasted the food here-(
Visited the exhibition again at Suntec City. Some of the artists who have been here a week are returning to China tomorrow although the exhibition itself will run till February 2.
Managed to get a silhouette image done by a famous Chinese silhouette artist.
Purchased a beautiful inside glass painting of horses. This is how the snuff bottles were painted
Visited the Spring in the City exhibition at the Suntec City.
They visit around CNY every year bringing tea, tea pots, Chinese art, porcelain, silk and various other beautiful things from China.
I have been visiting this exhibition since the 1990s and when I first visited them they used to exhibit at Raffles City. Over the years I have bought tea pots, ceramic pots and art from them.
Top quality artists with beautiful items and well worth a visit. I drank tea, chatted with some of the artists and bought tea, tea pots and carvings.
It must have been sometime in September 2003. I had to go to Jakarta ( I had not been to Jakarta till then) to meet a client. I arrived at their office and was surprised because their office was filled with artworks everywhere… the lobby, the walkways and the meeting rooms. This was something I had not seen in Singapore. For me this was the first time seeing so many original artworks up close. They were huge and beautiful and when you see such beautiful works it captivates you and makes an emotional impact on you. I kept looking at the artworks and my client noticing my interest, introduced me to the world of art by telling me about the artists and what they were depicting in their art pieces. I remember seeing pieces by Affandi, Srihadi, Hendra Gunawan, Arie Smith and Li Su Ji. Later I had an opportunity to visit their homes which were likewise filled with art all over. I realized that having such beautiful art pieces in your home not just enhances the aesthetics of your house but also your life because you are looking at such a beauty everyday. I slowly learnt how to recognize artists by their style of works.
For my birthday that year they gave me a small Arie Smith and that started my journey of collecting art. I started visiting galleries in Singapore and overseas, art exhibitions all over the world and browsing catalogs of art auctions. I have since collected about 160 art pieces by artists all over the world. Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, European and Vietnamese.
Interesting times were when I bought pieces that were being auctioned off when Lehman Brothers went bust; collected pieces by Sai Hakuseki (not knowing that it was Qi Baishi) seeing Wu Guanzhong to authenticate a piece I had bought at a gallery in Beijing and meeting Takashi Murakami.
Also fortunate to have been able to collect signed pieces by Charles Schulz, Muhammad Ali and Hanna Barbera.
Soon I learned that the problem of collecting art in Singapore is our climate. It’s humid and when I started displaying art at home, spots appeared on the artworks. I had to restore these pieces and now all my pieces are wrapped up in a warehouse which is climate controlled, temperature controlled with no light. I never even see them–(
At some point in time I am going to have to start thinking of what I do with these works. Do I find a place to display them where they will not be damaged or do I just sell it off.
Visited Art SG at MBS today. Once a year event which has become a “must attend”event for art lovers in Singapore.
Perhaps tomorrow I will talk about how I learnt to appreciate and collect art. That was in 2003. First time I visited a client in Jakarta at their office which was filled with beautiful art pieces. Indonesians appreciate and collect art and they support their local artists. Something not common here.
Anyway onto the fair. Interesting but not impressive. But still a good way to spend half a day seeing a huge variety of art from artists all over the world.
Club 100 is a philanthropic club of the North West CDC and it started in 2008 as an initiative by the then Mayor of NWCDC, Dr Teo Ho Pin.
I remember that he had organized a lunch for about 8 people and he mooted the idea of starting a club of donors comprising individuals and companies giving a sum of $100 a month on a giro scheme.
All the monies collected would be used to provide for the food needs of needy residents. At that lunch I wondered (my ignorance then) if there were really people who were hungry in Singapore. It was only later that I realized that there were many people, for a variety of reasons, who were in need of food assistance such as the elderly, the disabled, the sick and families whose breadwinner was unable or no longer wanted to provide for them for a variety of reasons.
Some of the pictures of our earlier events.
After that lunch he asked me if I would chair this initiative. I agreed and I have been doing this for all these years.
We started small with 10 donors and over the years so many wonderful people have joined us in this initiative. There are now close to 800 members who contribute to this worthy cause.
Under the current Mayor Alex Yam, we now provide other forms of assistance, in addition to food assistance, as the needs in our community have grown.
Every year we have a dinner to thank our donors and I always look forward to this event. So many of the donors have, over the years, now become friends and this is always such a happy one with people running around taking pictures with their friends, catching up with the latest happenings and enjoying the food.
This year’s dinner is at the National Gallery and the food tasting session is later today. We make sure the food is top quality for our donors and friends and will post pictures of food tasting later.
Finished the food tasting session for the dinner on 13 February at the National Gallery.
3 live stations of laksa, Kueh pi ti and roti jala.
Main courses of beef rendang, sweet and sour fish and lemongrass chicken.
Today is Pongal festival. It marks the start and the giving of thanks for a bountiful harvest.
When I was growing up, the highlight of the festival was eating sweet pongal cooked by my grandmother and my mother. They would cook it in huge pots and somehow we would finish it up over a couple of days. Back then it was primarily a family event.
Nowadays pongal is celebrated in a huge way in India and in particular Tamil Nadu. Government schools are closed for 4 days for the celebrations with lots of special programming on tv and radio there.
And with the growing importance of pongal celebrations in India and with the arrival of new Indians here, Pongal is becoming a big festival here amongst Indians here especially the Tamils. Light ups in Serangoon Road and celebrations all over the island this week are now common.
Am looking forward to celebrating Pongal with my mother with a wonderful vegetarian meal and sweet pongal later today!!
Had a wonderful lunch, hosted by Prasoon Mukherjee, with the Ambassador of Brazil Luciano Mazza de Andrade at the Shangri la.
He’s just arrived here and was good hearing from him about the country. Didn’t know we import so much from Brazil such that we are the 6th largest export market for them.
Never been to South America. Perhaps time to start planning a trip to Brazil and Mexico?
Finally the dinner postponed from Nov took place at MBS.
Good venue, good food. The jackfruit payasam was exceptionally yummy! However the most enjoyable part of the event was the wonderful company. It was nice meeting old friends and getting to meet new people.
Not sure if and when such an event by the Indian community will ever occur…
It would have been nice if the significance of giving SM Lee an elephant was explained to him and the audience. Also a commemorative program of the event showcasing the highlights of his career and his key interactions with the Indian community would have been meaningful for the guests as a keepsake souvenir.
The songs were beautiful although I always thought that his creativity ended starting with Aspects of Love and Sunset Boulevard.
First time I was introduced to any music by Andrew Lloyd Webber was when I played Jesus Christ Superstar in the school band between 1976 to 1978. I loved the music.. but I did not know who the composer was. I remember going to Sungei Road in 1976 to buy a pirated cassette of JCS (the movie soundtrack) for a princely sum of $2. I didn’t appreciate all the songs then. Now I think the entire album is a classic.
First musical of his I saw was Cats in London. That was in 1988. I managed to get the standby tickets for the matinee on a Saturday. Later I saw Phantom when I was a student in the UK. This was on a weekday matinee and again they were standby tickets.
Over the years, I have also watched his various musicals such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat (with Jason Donovan), Cats, Evita, Phantom, Aspects of Love (the original cast with Michael Ball) and Sunset Boulevard. And I have seen the movie versions of Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, Jason and Phantom.
At tonight’s concert, the female singer was good but the male singer could have been better.
Overall an enjoyable evening.
Hmmm… On reflection I didn’t enjoy the performance of the song he composed for the coronation of King Charles. They could have skipped that one.
If they had performed “Unexpected Song” from Song and Dance, that would have been nice..
daily musings 