City buzz

SINGAPORE'S FAB FOUR TAKES NEXT BIG STEP

MUSIC

The Sam Willows' Take Heart Tour

SINGAPORE'S favourite (and most photogenic) indie-pop band The Sam Willows is playing its first-ever headlining show on Friday.

The gig at The Coliseum is in support of the band's full-length debut album, Take Heart.

It is set to be the group's biggest concert to date with special guests lined up and a set-list that will feature all the radio hits plus never-heard-before songs.

The quartet, which comprises siblings Benjamin and Narelle Kheng and friends Sandra Riley Tang and Jonathan Chua, shot to fame with the highly acclaimed self-titled debut EP in 2012.

Since then, the group has also built an overseas fanbase from playing at prestigious international music festivals like SWSX (US), MU:CON (South Korea) and WAM (Australia).

The Sam Willows is also a regular fixture on the charts and was the first Singapore act to make it to Spotify Spotlight, which has previously featured then-emerging acts like Macklemore, Lorde and Hozier.

The Sam Willows also has the honour of being the first South-east Asian act to break into Spotify's Global Viral 50, a playlist comprising the most shared and trending tracks across the world.

By Dylan Tan

DINING

Kueh Appreciation Day

TRADITIONAL kuehs or local snacks get their spot in the limelight for the second time in this year's Kueh Appreciation Day, organised by Slow Food (Singapore).

Slow Food (Singapore) president Daniel Chia says that the inaugural Kueh Appreciation Day in 2015 was very well received. "Due to popular demand, we decided to organise it again this year at ToTT so more food lovers can get acquainted with the humble kueh," explains Mr Chia. "These time-honoured treats have been a ubiquitous part of many lives, and we hope that these culinary traditions and traditional businesses can flourish."

Expect an assortment of savoury and sweet kueh sold by local kueh artisans spanning different ethnic groups, like HarriAnns (Peranakan, left), Kuehs and Snacks (Teochew), Mary's Kafe (Eurasian), Ji Xiang Ang Ku Kueh (Hokkien), Hainan Xiao Chi (Hainanese) and new vendors Old Seng Choong (Singaporean Chinese) and Chef Pang's Hakka Snacks (Hakka).

Some rare kueh will be specially prepared for the event such as the Hakka Vegetable Kueh by Chef Pang's Hakka Snacks and the Larp, a unique Hainanese rice dumping to be demonstrated by the Singapore Hainan Hwee Kuan.

Those who want to learn more about the intricacies behind making these kueh can sign up for four kueh demonstration classes with heritage kueh makers.

By Tay Suan Chiang

PHOTOGRAPHY

Pop-up Exhibition by Lucy Davis

ARTIST Lucy Davis, formerly the assistant professor, School of Art, Design & Media (ADM) at Nanyang Technological University, stages a pop-up exhibition at her house, as a farewell show after working in NTU for 11 years.

The two-day event at 12 Wilton Close on July 23-24 is entitled Everyday Animisms, and features two series of limited-edition photographic works from the Railtrack Songmaps project.

Both series depict ephemeral installations. One features sun-shadow puppets of birds found on the Internet, and photographed again in sites where the actual birds were last seen. The other is a new series of human-bird "nests". Both were taken along the former KTM railtracks at Tanglin Halt. The Railtrack Songmaps project was last exhibited at the 2015 M1 Fringe Festival which was themed around animals.

In 2014-15, Davis also had an exhibition at NUS Museum titled When you get closer to the heart, you may find cracks... Stories of Wood from The Migrant Ecologies Project. Davis founded The Migrant Ecologies Project in 2010 as an umbrella for art practice-led inquiries into questions of culture and nature in South-east Asia.

By Cheah Ui-Hoon

THEATRE

Day I Met The Prince

IN 1988, the late doyen of Singapore theatre Kuo Pao Kun penned and directed this lovely and heartfelt play based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's classic children's book The Little Prince.

In it, an adult character thinks back to his childhood experience of trying to find someone who would appreciate his drawings. He meets a little prince from another planet who is trying to solve the problem of stopping his goat from eating the prince's only rose plant - without tying the goat up or fencing the rose plant.

Kuo's version is well-loved and has been performed in other countries.

As part of the M1 Chinese Theatre Festival, the one-hour family play is returning for a 22-show run over 10 days. It is being revived by Kuo's daughter Jian Hong, with a creative team that also includes Xiaohan, Julian Wong and Mark Chan. The play is in Mandarin with English surtitles.

By Helmi Yusof

DINING

Hua Ting Steamboat Restaurant

STEAMBOAT lovers heading down to Hua Ting Steamboat Restaurant now have two new options to choose from - a healthier Five Grain Porridge Steamboat, and a familiar Lok Lok Hotpot.

The Five Grain Porridge Steamboat costs S$88++ and its base consists of fibre-rich red rice grains, soyabeans, wheat, broomcorn millet and foxtail millet. Ingredients include live crab, Japanese scallops, tiger prawns, sliced carp fish, and handmade cordyceps cuttlefish meatballs.

As for the Lok Lok Hotpot, the satay broth was inspired by chef Desmond Wooi's own childhood spent growing up in Malaysia. The set costs S$48++ and includes Japanese scallops, beef cubes, pork belly, sliced chicken, and cuttlefish.

By Rachel Loi