blue basil
Tuesday May 12, 2009
these food photos were shot recently at sharlene’s 21st birthday at the blue basil. the food in general was good and the ambience rather cozy. thanks again sharlene!
been feeling really lazy since the holidays started. it is funny how the energy that i had in store to tackle the holidays with can so quickly dissipate. maybe i should take it easier, as though things aren’t already easy enough. maybe i need a few problems.
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cinema overdose
Wednesday April 29, 2009
sarah and i have been watching a lot of movies lately, taking advantage of the substantial student discount before 5pm and the fact that school is out (hurrah!). a few days ago we caught revolutionary road. today it was taken. i thought that revolutionary road had more depth thematically, just the kind of movie i like.
furthermore, i have been watching a lot of old movies by tarantino and the coen brothers on tudou so you get what i mean when i say “cinema overdose”.
the interior of the theatre above was shot at the cathay. i am not sure if a still constitutes “recording”. perhaps it does but hey, the movie hasn’t started yet. converted the photo to monochrome in lightroom, applied a split-tone and ended off by overlaying a texture in photoshop for the finishing touch.
smoked salmon sandwich with walnut bap bread
assorted breads with olive oil & vinegar
after that it was dinner at cedele before heading to the singapre art museum to catch filament, a showcase of audio and visual final-year projects from my school. i was especially keen to see reclaim land, which is a multimedia journalism project that explores the space constraint in singapore and how people make use of the space in interesting ways. visit their website at reclaimland.sg.
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food nation!
Friday April 10, 2009
i am really inspired by peter frank edwards’ work and so i have decided i will try shooting some food too!
^ one happy eater!
if you have me on facebook as a friend, i will be posting food pictures to my newly-created “food nation!” album, so look out for that.
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riders’ cafe
Saturday February 28, 2009
had a great breakfast with sarah yesterday at this place called riders’ cafe at the bukit timah saddle club. it’s actually printed on the menus as “riders cafe” (i think the apostrophe made things a little inconvenient) but i guess if food, not the spelling bee, is your game, you can get away with a little apostrophe-cide.
to get there you have either got to drive or take a cab in. i guess the simple reason is that people who have the money (and time) to ride horses are usually rich, and rich people usually have cars. the saddle club is located off eng neo avenue, in the midst of greenery. every time i see too much greenery, i just feel like it is not going to be there for very long, unless that area is the miltary’s backyard/playground.
the buildings in the saddle club are mostly a collection of colonial-style bungalows, with the stables being simple concrete and wood affairs. in fact, if there were more trees and overgrowth, it would look a little like my auntie’s kampung in malaysia.
that is me waiting for breakfast to be served. the chap behind me came into the cafe complete with breeches and the stick he beat them horses with. he was chatting with a couple for tai-tais, representative of the typical clientele.
sarah, about to tuck into her “eggs benedict”. she highly recommended then to me but i declined. i am just not sure i like the sound of some guy’s name in my breakfast. too personal.
a close-up of the “eggs benedict”. i applaud the chef’s use of cheese to imitate the egg yolk. more colourful that way. the real egg yolk is beneath the faux egg yolk. this is a perfect example of a culinary double-entendre i say. if they had just called this set “poached eggs”, i might have ordered it.
i had the “riders’ breakfast” instead. the jam was excellent and i liked that they included 3 grapes. nice touch visually but i did not eat them. apparently riders have to start their day with this meal, but i wouldn’t recommend having too much baked beans. think the bumping motion while riding and toot-toot.
after breakfast we took a walk around the premises. of course, the main attraction were the houses but we couldn’t really get anywhere near them (members only). managed to shoot a couple through the fences though.
thought for this one above the fencing actually made a nice compositional element.
this horse was peacefully grazing before we interrupted for a photoshoot. he ignored us for the first few frames but probably realised that we were not leaving without grabbing a few shots with it looking into the camera. so it obliged.
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antonio
Thursday September 25, 2008
meet antonio. he is a spanish gentlemen who serves lebanese food in his japanese manga cafe. he is assisted by a chinese waitress, who he affectionately calls his ‘tastebuds’ and a nepalese dude who is an expert in italian cuisine.
if you are confused, or at least mildly interested by now, i say… precisely! i met him while i was at suntec city earlier, photographing shopfronts for some web f&b directory that singtel is putting together. i am a long away from meeting my target, but that is not the point of this post.
antonio came as a fresh relief after countless stares from shop assistants and owners, who probably couldn’t decide to call security or leave me be. when i stopped outside antonio’s shop and raised my camera, he smiled and gave me a thumbs-up, which promptly caused me to lower my camera because i did not know how to respond.
i then noticed the stacks of manga comics, juxtaposed against the signboards that read like they could be from the mediterranean. he said that he ‘loves the international flavour’. that was how the conversation started, though it was cut short as i had to move along. he told me to ‘come back for some food later’.
so i did that after i wrapped up shooting for the day. i made my way to his cafe – the ‘manga oasis’, on the 3rd floor and nursed a glass of home-made lemon tea with a dash of mint while he prepared my meal – shawama which is basically lebanese kebab and a plate of chicken rice, which i tried to refuse but he wouldn’t hear of it.
above is antonio sans head gear laying down the veggies. he said the secret is extra virgin olive oil, which he uses liberally with his dishes.
antonio having his bald pate covered, thanks to his nepalese chef, whose specialty is pasta with tuna. he used to work in italy. my shawama is almost done.
he showed me the finer points of wrapping a shawama, while extolling the virtue of good hygiene via plastic gloves.
i started eating and boy, was the shawama delicious! apparently, the chicken is roasted after marinating in 10 different herbs and spices overnight. so we chatted while i ate, and we talked about family and stuff like that. he has got 2 kids, aged 4 and 6. he used to work in the states and was trained as a pilot in the past. been places, this guy.
not surprisingly, he said he made the decision to settle down in singapore because he loves the country and thinks highly of the education system. of course, a large part of that is due to the fact that his wife is a local chinese lady.
continuing with the impressive hospitality, he refused to accept payment for the food, booming: ‘how much do you owe me? you are my guest!’. i found out from the waitress that he has basically treated all the tenants of the surrounding shops at one point or another.
what a character. and what an experience to meet a generous soul with a story.
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botak jones
Friday March 14, 2008
i can have my steak and eat it too – and eat i did, as i plowed through the plate, finishing ahead of my family.
this was no competition of course. what it was was a nice family sit-down, courtesy of my little brother, who has had a windfall of sorts lately. slicing through the steak – medium rare, no doubt – i marveled at the thought of how i was actually enjoying a proper hunk of half-cooked meat in a kopi-tiam (coffee shop). not the thin, jawbreaking excuse of a steak served by all those pseudo ‘western food’ stalls, but an authentic piece of australian ribeye, served with generous portions of coleslaw and spicy fries.
all business is competition. to succeed from scratch, you must have a business model that is unique yet viable. there is no point going up against the big boys. you simply have to quietly skirt past them. that is what ‘botak (bald) jones’, by serving authentic western fare in the heartland, has done. think about it, if ‘botak jones’ was to set up shop in the city area, it would just be another joint serving large portions in an already saturated market. what dear mr. ‘botak’ jones has done was to combine the novelty of the assimilated ‘angmoh’ (caucasian) in the heartland with fantastic food and bingo! you have a winner!
thinking about it, the botak jones phenomenon has come to represent the state of our society. singapore, the melting pot, a microcosm of the world. where the influences of the outside have reached the innermost sanctum of our identity. after all, i am a 22 year old undergraduate who studies the works of american scholars and listens to american independent music.
so rightfully, i ought to have my piece of america (or australia, or wherever) in a good old steak too.
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