Princely Treasures from the House of Liechtenstein

Went for this exhibition a while ago and only blogged about this now (this exhibition has ended yesterday, oops!) because was a little busy last week and my computer died two days ago. It has since revived, very much to my relief. I had no intention of going for this exhibition because prior to visiting each exhibition, I like to read up on it before deciding whether to go for it or not. On that day itself, the agenda was to go to the Absolut Canvas exhibition, so no homework done for this. I have absolutely no idea what's Lichenstein. I thought it sounded very much like a person's name! Breadman sneered at my folly. Haha.. Of course la, he's well versed in history. For your information, Liechtenstein is a place in Europe, bothered by Switzerland and Austria. So this exhibition basically entails artpieces collected by the Prince of Liechtenstein, dated back 500 years ago. Here are some pieces which caught my eye. No photos of description to match the artpieces.. oops! Just enjoy the beauty of these intricate pieces. The technique of etching was used to produce some of the artwork. It involves using acid to cut a metal surface, thereby producing a design. Interesting indeed! I havent heard of it before. Well done, I learnt something new again!    
         

 

 

 

 

 

 I have a thing for busts. Probably I should create one of myself and place it in my house next time.

 I remembered this artpiece! It was termed as "death" and it portrayed death as something whimsical. Notice the coffins and skeletons. It goes along the line that there is nothing you can do to avoid death. Even the couple at the bottom right corner, seemingly oblivious to the chaos n ruckus, will encounter death one day.  

 

The blind leading the blind.

 

 

花好月圆庆中秋

中秋节快乐! 据说, 今晚的月亮是整个月份中最圆的一天, 但是我仍然没看到圆月...今年也没提灯笼, 少了一些中秋的气息.. 唯一不变的是每年的今天都要吃月饼:) 小猪仔是我的最爱因为它微甜，无馅料，价格保持在五角钱。月圆人团圆，你吃月饼了吗?

Absolut Canvas and Tiong Bahru Bakery

As promised, in this post I'll be sharing the recent exhibitions that I checked out with Breadman. Absolut Canvas was part of the highlights during Night Festival 2013, but lucky me, I was able to go for it during day time as well! As the name clearly suggests, Absolut Canvas was a showcase of specially designed Absolut Vodka Bottles by artists and includes limited edition collections as well. If my memory did not fail me, two ardent/hardcore Absolut Vodka fans lent their prized collections to the museum for this special exhibition. If you love drinking or have a particular penchant for this glass bottle, then this exhibition is for you. For myself, I have a low tolerance for vodka especially. I once drank a long island tea cocktail and was almost knocked out in a few mins. Probably it was because I slurpped it down just like any other soft drink. Haha. The photos do not do much justice to the exhibition because  my camera cant take nice photos in dim light.

 A hanging display of foil balloons welcomed us as we stepped in National Museum of Singapore.

                                                 The lighting.

 So far, I have only tried Absolut Vodka and Absolut Peach. What about you?

 

                      Absolut Watkins and Absolut Flavor of the Tropics 

Absolut Craft Smokey Tea.

                                                                      Absolut Tune V2.

 A myriad of Absolut bottles. How many have you seen before? It's an eye opener to me!

 

                         Sun Wu Kong! I think this is made for China.

                                 One of the limited edition bottles.

Overall, the exhibition was pretty small scale, can finish it within 20 minutes but still pretty much impressionable to me cuz I think i have just seen my lifetime's worth of vodka bottles. Hehe! This exhibition ended on 2 September at the National Museum of Singapore and if you are feeling sad about not going for the exhibition, next time keep track of upcoming exhibitions from the Life! section in The Straits Times papers every Friday.

 

Lunch was at Tiong Bahru Bakery, the highly raved place amongst food bloggers. To be frank, when I first heard its name, I thought it's one of those old school confectionaries selling hotdog buns and pandan waffles that we have hidden in neighbourhoods. A pity that it wasnt. It was a bakery with knives and folks as your cutlery set. We went to the outlet at raffles city and ordered a croissant, a kouign aman (queen-ah-man) and a tuna foccacia for sharing. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was surprised to find seats at this artisanal bakery almost instantly. I guess the hype has died down significantly. I was looking forward to piggingdigging in when my bread was served.    

 

 I cant deny that the croissant ($3.20) is one of the crispiest and flakiest croissants that I have tasted. It would have won me completely over if it was served warm but it wasnt. Hence, I was slightly sceptical to give it best-croissant-in-town label. It was good and above average, but the best? Probably not. Initially, I ate the bread using both knife and folk but after a while, I decided to use my bare hands because eating bread using cutlery is kind of pretentious to me. Heh. Plus eating them with hands seem more palatable. Kouign Amann ($4.00) was a total flop. It was too hard, too cold and just too sweet. It was charred as well hence the slight bitterness, not sure if it was prepared that way intentionally. It surprised me that this is one of the bestsellers at the bakery. In case you are wondering what it is, a kouign amann is actually a breton bread that's drizzled with caramelized sugar. I am someone with a sweet tooth, but this one just didnt make it for me. Breadman had to polish the remaining half of the kouign amann for me.       

Tuna foccacia ($9.50) was foccacia bread with peppered tuna and rocket salad laying atop. This was good with a hefty price tag. Bread was soft and fluffy but the taste of pepper seemed overpowering as it masked the taste of the tuna. No complaints for the rocket salad as it was served fresh and it retained its crunchiness. The best part about this dish? It was served warm! Anyway, the above reviews are just my two cents worth of opinions. I am no food connoisseur, so my reviews might not resonate with yours, so try it yourself before you condemn any place that I recommend/blacklist here! Will go back to this place to try out the flan and squid ink bun next time! 

 

Total damage: $16.70 for 2 pax (inclusive of gst)  

 

Overall ratings: 3.5/5 stars

 

Tiong Bahru Bakery

252 North Bridge Road #B1-11/12

Raffles City Shopping Centre

Night Festival 2013

This post is going to be something different because I will be blogging about an event which I never attended at all. I'll be sharing some photos taken by a friend who went for the event just for my sake! Hence not much description under the respective photos because I wasnt there and hadnt seen any of these.

Touched to the max. Sobs. *Wipes a tear away. Haha. The Night Festival is an annual arts affair held at the Bras Basah stretch of roads, which includes the Armenian Street, Fort Canning Park, Singapore Art Museum, National Museum etc. Its inaugural opening took place in year 2008 and this is the 6th year in which this festival is held in Singapore. Believe it or not, I only learnt of its existence last year, when I was terribly sick. Hence I couldnt attend it. Once again, this year I couldnt attend it although I am better physically, the reason was that it clashes with the 7th month of the lunar calendar. I was terribly upset when I knew I couldnt go because I spent some time planning which exhibitions and art performances to go to. Mom posed me this question: Is it something that you really must go? Who will bear the consequences if you become very sick again. Mom's right. I cant afford to go back to the hospital again. So goodbye to night festival 2013 this year. Hence I was pretty touched when Mr Vainpot went to the even for me. It was really a nice gesture of his because I just list down the exhibitions I wanted to view initially and he would take photos of them. A pity that he went on 31st Aug, when most of the art performances I wanted to go to had already ended a week ago. Nonetheless, I am deeply appreciative! So this post is dedicated to my friend.

                      Night Lights: Palomas at National Museum Of Singapore

                        Night Lights: Palomas at National Museum of Singapore

 Night Lights: Palomas at National Museum of Singapore. Nice right? I love stars :)

                                                     Palomas

                                                       Palomas

                                                     Palomas

                                                   Palomas

                    Night Lights: The Magic Melody at Singapore Art Museum

                                            The Magic Melody

                                  Night Lights: Paperplanes at SOTA

It's a wonder how something so something so simple can appear intricate with the help of light. Thumbs up. 
In addition to all these, Mr Vainpot went to the Absolut Vodka exhibition too, no photos here because I managed to go to that particular exhibition too! Hehe. Luckily they have that exhibition in the afternoon! I'll do up a post later on about my date at the national museum and unsatisfying lunch at the much raved about Tiong Bahru Bakery.

Ichiban Boshi

Was at Causeway Point some time ago (probably a month back), so here's a look at what two people ate back then. Correction, the more appropriate term would be 2 hungry foodies. Haha

Ocha ($1.20) is a must-order each time I stepped into a Japanese restaurant/eatery. My reasoning: it flushes out the extra oil that's left in our stomachs and it's refillable! Hehe. Cheapo-ness in me is acting up.

 

As we assumed that the main courses would take a long time to be served, we decided to have some finger food instead. By finger food, I meant sushi of course. Heh. Potato Salad Inari ($2.40) was sushi wrapped with beancurd skin, topped with a copious amount of mashed potato, a slice of cheese and spring onions. This was nice, a creative mix in my opinion. The sauce that was drizzled on the cheese was slightly sweet with a hint of spiciness. I am not sure if wasabi was the culprit. Overall, commendable.

 Golden catch ($2.40) was a trio of sushi filled with dory fish fillet, coated with potato strips. This is average, probably even sub par because the fish fillet was tough. Not melt-in-the-mouth kind. Speaking of fish, I missed the fish I had at crystal jade vivo city.

As we were served this dish, all our mains arrived and we were in for a shock!

 

Ninniku Salmon Wazen ($17.90) shocked us out with the spread! There were so much food in this set and the appetizer wasnt just bite size! The fried scallop was the size of my palm. The only small item was the cold tofu. Haha.. This is suitable for the most hungry fellow who wants to eat a lot but does not want to spend a bomb. Salmon was grilled with different strains of mushrooms, drizzled with garlic sauce. The thoughtful thing about this setup is you are in fully control of the temperature of the salmon, want it cooled? Just turn off the stove, otherwise leave it on. Scallop was the kind in which you can sink your teeth into. Crunchy exterior, succulent interior. Cold tofu was smooth. This place still serves the best Chawanmushi! Its egg pudding is silky smooth with a nice velvety texture. Even better than Sakae's. Not perfect in appearance as you can still see its bubbly texture, luckily the taste made up for it. Miso soup was normal. I cant really differentiate the bad misos from the good ones. I think the one that Daiso sells is equivalent to the ones sold outside too. Heh. Once again, we ordered too much! But we didnt expected the salmon set to be humongous. It looked pretty much one person's serving from the menu, but when served, it's more suitable for sharing.

Tempura Udon ($13.90) promises no complaints. Nothing much can go wrong with udon I guess. Noodles werent overly cooked. It was springy and refreshing. Didnt make us thirsty after eating. So my assumption was no MSG for this dish. Tempura was addictive even though it was slightly oily. The crunch was there, the prawns were fresh. I didnt eat this dish as I am allergic to seafood so the comments were left by my meal companion.

 

Total damage: $45.90 for 2 pax

 

Overall ratings: 4.5/5 stars

 

Ichiban Boshi

1 Woodlands Square

#05-06/07

Causeway Point

Singapore 738099