SUKA MAKAN: SUKI-YA SUKIYAKI & SHABU SHABU @ MARINA SQUARE

We're back in Marina Square again. This time for another "Eat As Much As You Can" buffet, at Suki-Ya Sukiyaki & Shabu Shabu Restaurant. This is the Japanese version of hotpot or steamboat meals which you pretty much do it yourself which we so love in Singapore.

This is the basic buffet section,
and the sauce station.

There is a basic buffet with all the vegetables, mushrooms and meat balls, with a variety of sauces, and a premium buffet which includes wagyu beef, pork collar, prawns, scallops and black mussels for a $13 upgrade. You order as much as you can eat, but have to pay extra for leftovers. No fear of that for us, as our appetites have shrunken over the years, and we are not one for wasting precious food. So two rounds were more than enough for us.

The premium items are ordered separately,
and are individually delivered in trays. 

There are two soup bases which you can choose, and both make hearty soups to wash down a protein rich meal. There is also free-flow of drinks, dessert and ice cream to end a hearty makan session. We have come here many times, and as there is a discount for seniors over 55, its likely we will return.

Now, we are ready to cook... and eat!

Some desserts and fruits to end the meal.

SUKI-YA SUKIYAKI & SHABU SHABU

6 Raffles Boulevard #02-183 B/C

Marina Square

Best Hotpot Buffet in Maria Square Singapore — Suki-Ya

ELEMENTS - SSO x DING YI / Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Ding Yi Music Company / Review

ELEMENTS – SSO x DINGYI

Musicians of 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

& Ding Yi Music Company

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (11 January 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 January 2026 with the title "Creative take on mainstream and avant-garde fare by SSO and Ding Yi".

In a first-ever collaboration between the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Ding Yi Music Company, instrumental virtuosity was the order of the day. Such a programme consisting wholly of contemporary works by local and Chinese composers is not a regular part of the SSO faithful’s diet, but par for the course for Ding Yi, Singapore’s leading professional chamber ensemble playing traditional Chinese instruments.

Programme curator Dedric Wong
introduced the works to be performed.

A very well-filled house was treated to a vast array of timbres and sounds, from traditional to contemporary. Opening the evening was young Singaporean composer Sulwyn Lok’s Gathered By The Winds, an SSO commission which brought together three very popular folk songs from China. Even a neophyte will recognise Molihua (Jasmine Flower) from Jiangsu, Mu Ge (Pastoral Song) from Inner Mongolia and Xiao He Tang Shui (The Little River Flows) from Yunnan, performed in an upbeat arrangement influenced by popular music.

Photo: Clive Choo

The piquant combination of Western flute (Jin Ta) and Chinese dizi (Lyu Sih-Ying), supported by pipa, sheng, yangqin, guzheng and Western string quintet, with rhythm section of Chinese and Western percussion (Low Yik Hang and Mark Suter) was ear-catching and enjoyable.

Photo: Clive Choo

Of far sterner substance was Academy Award-winning Chinese composer Tan Dun’s Eight Colors (1986), an early work for Western string quartet, crafted when he was still experimenting with atonalism and the avant-garde. Violinists Zhao Tian and Zhang Sijing, violist Wang Dandan and cellist Christopher Mui treated this work as they would a work by Arnold Schoenberg or Elliott Carter, with utmost seriousness. The portamenti (slides) encountered kept its feeling Oriental while and brevity prevented musical interest from wearing thin.

Photo: Clive Choo

The work with most local flavour was Singapore composer Ho Chee Kong’s Shades Of Oil Lamps, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival and premiered by London Sinfonietta in 2008. Led by Ding Yi resident conductor Dedric Wong, this version saw some Western instruments of the original replaced by Chinese instruments, which included dizi, sheng, daruan and huqin, while retaining cello, bass, oboe, bassoon and two percussionists.

Bassist Yang Zhengyi strikes the gong,
and the story comes to an end.

Its programme centred around an itinerant storyteller of a century ago plying his trade along the Singapore River. Enthralling his listeners, the music followed the ebb and flow of tall tales being spun, reaching a climax before the inevitable plea for donations. Even audience disquiet was being captured, before a gong signalled it was time to pack up.

Photo: Clive Choo

The longest work on the programme, also directed by Wong, was Chinese composer Zhou Long’s Metal, Stone, Silk and Bamboo in the world premiere of its octet version. Its three demanding movements attempted to relive and recreate the lofty heights of Tang dynasty palace composition through contemporary perpectives.

Dizi exponent Lyu was cast as lead performer, playing dadi, qudi and bangdi, flutes of different registers. Supported by flute, clarinet, violin, cello, zhongruan and percussion, its three varied movements were a tour de force of creative imagination. A repeat performance by the combined forces of SSO and Ding Yi cannot come soon enough.

BAROQUE AND BEYOND / SSO Organ Series / Review

 

BAROQUE AND BEYOND

SSO Organ Series

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (18 January 2026)

Fact: I have not been a regular to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s organ series, often preferring to take long snoozes on Sunday afternoons. That is a grievous loss, as I realised this afternoon, having dragged myself out of bed to a very crowded Victoria Concert Hall. The offering was unusual as it featured re:Sound, Singapore only professional chamber orchestra, and Koh Jia Hwei, a pianist who had transitioned to become an organist. (Now she can say she has a bigger organ than her hubby, virtuoso pianist Lim Yan.)

Koh opened the 75-minute concert with a solo, J.S.Bach’s Passacaglia & Fugue in C minor (BWV.582) on VCH's Klais organ. Having heard this numerous times on CD recordings, one can only conclude that a live performance is an infinitely better experience. The opening bass notes are performed on the pedals, and when she hit the low C, one could actually feel the hall vibrate. The ensuing short variations on the ground bass theme were built incrementally with manuals, and when pedals joined in, the sonorities expanded to envelop the entire hall. At its climax, with all four limbs in hectic action, one could only marvel at what organists achieve which mere pianists only dream of. In a word, breathtaking.

Photo: Resound Collective

The string players of re:Sound then trooped in for Arcangelo Corelli’s most performed concerto grosso, the one in G minor (Op.6 No.8), popularly known as the Christmas Concerto. This featured Isaac Koh on chamber organ which functioned more like a continuo. Led by Yang Shuxiang, the strings played with cohesion and tautness, generating a vibrato and volume that was unafraid to tread on period instrument practice fingers and toes. Still not sure why the music is related to Christmas, but there was a pastorale filled with the sound of drones in its finale to close on a warm and happy high.

Photo: Resound Collective

The concert’s big work was Liechtensteinian composer Josef Rheinberger’s Organ Concerto No.2 in G minor (Op.177) with a return of Koh and an augmented re:Sound with brass (French horns and trumpet) and timpani. Rheinberger (1839-1901), like Karg-Elert, Gigout, Lemare, Widor and Buxtehude, is a name familiar only to organists, I suspect. Never previously heard this three-movement work, I was prepared to be surprised. Shock and awe were more the actual response, being caught unaware by both organ and ensemble in full throttle. The late-Romantic idiom with mild dissonance was familiar enough, its grand gestures Elgarian, and one of its themes even seemed to head in the direction of Nimrod before stopping short and pulling away. This movement garnered much applause, and that seemed almost appropriate given the buzz.

Photo: Resound Collective

The central slow movement in C major alternated organ solo with muted strings, but that soon built up a head of steam for a loud and stormy climax before receding to a quiet close. The finale replicated the opening’s busyness and raucousness, with punched out chords alternating between G minor and major keys. There should have been a big melody a la Saint-Saens, but there was still sufficient melodic interest to propel the movement to a glorious G major close.

Greeted with tumultuous applause from a full-house, the encore, although somewhat predictable (given the general tonality of the concert) but still highly enjoyable, was Bach’s Air on G string (from Orchestral Suite No.3), which is actually in D major. Strings alternated with organ solo, before coming together for a peaceable and sublime close. Looks like Sunday afternoons would never be the same again.

AN EVENING OF OPERA HIGHLIGHTS NOT TO MISS: AMORE! BY SINGAPORE LYRIC OPERA

 

Love opera and its most passionate moments? Enjoy favourite arias, duets and ensembles in Amore! with Singapore Lyric Opera’s A-list of soloists including artistic director soprano Nancy Yuen, Spanish tenor Israel Lozano, Taiwanese mezzo-soprano Jo-Pei Weng and Korean baritone Song Kee Chang. They will be partnered by Boris Kraljevic on the piano.

Highlights from these operas (sung in original languages):

DELIBES Lakme

BIZET The Pearl Fishers

ROSSINI The Barber of Seville

PUCCINI La Boheme

VERDI Don Carlo

BELLINI Norma

VERDI Rigoletto

J.STRAUSS Die Fledermaus

Popular songs including Granada, Core ‘ngrato, Funiculi Funicula and O Sole Mio.

AMORE!

Singapore Lyric Opera

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday, 25 January 2026 at 5 pm

Get your tickets here:

Amore! – Celebrating Opera’s Passionate Moments | SingaporeLyricOpera

Nancy Yuen & Israel Lozano

VITALY PISARENKO Piano Recital / Review

 

VITALY PISARENKO Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (16 January 2026)

I must have been living in a parallel universe to learnt that this is London-based Ukrainian-Russian pianist Vitaly Pisarenko’s third recital in Singapore. How did I miss his first two, held in 2022 and 2023? Perhaps it was the haze of Covid-19 lifting, but am I grateful to have finally caught the 1st prizewinner of the 2008 Utrecht Liszt International Piano Competition, who also got the 3rd prize at the Leeds in 2015. I was even in Leeds that year, caught the eventual winner Anna Tsybuleva but had missed Vitaly completely.

Presented by Finger Waltz Music Productions, Pisarenko replicated the tandem of Schubert and Liszt of his 2022 recital. Opening with Schubert’s Four Impromptus (D.935 or Op.142), he showed the breadth and depth of his musicality. A singing tone was established from the first number in F minor, which opens with the exact same chordal notes as Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, and there was never a moment this extended essay felt like an exercise. The poetry continued in the “easier” A flat major Impromptu. Many students play this for their ABRSM exams, but how many actually capture its essence?

Photo: Finger Waltz

The variations of the B flat major piece were handled so musically that one forgot how technically difficult this actually is. The minor key variation was sonorous and poignant, and the prestidigitation that followed would have influenced the young Chopin and Schumann. The Hungarian-flavoured F minor final Impromptu, aided and abetted by Pisarenko’s mastery of scales closed the set on a high. One just wished the audience had not applauded between every single impromptu as this had disrupted the flow of the music.

Photo: Finger Waltz

The recital’s second half showed exactly why Pisarenko was awarded the coveted Liszt prize. Hyphenated Liszt was represented here by two kinds of transcriptions – one a literal note-for-note arrangement (more a conflation actually) and the other a free fantasy on operatic themes, sometimes called a paraphrase.

The orchestra’s glorious sonorities were captured in Liszt’s direct transcription of Wagner’s Tannhauser Overture. “Too many notes,” one might argue but that was exactly Liszt’s remit and Pisarenko’s thunderous account captured all of its glory. Beginning quietly with the Pilgrim’s Chorus, this soon built in volume and intensity, and then escalated to the freewheeling and carnal realms of Venusberg, before returning to reality with the biggest of bangs. 

Photo: Finger Waltz

This is hardly ever heard in Singapore (although one fondly remembers Kenneth Hamilton’s feverish account in 2007), simply because its too darned difficult to pull off. The only other time I had that “lump in the throat” was in Leeds, by another prizewinner Sung-Hoon Kim in 2006.

How poetic it was for Liszt to title his free fantasies or paraphrases on operatic themes as reminiscences, a recalling of popular melodies and moments from popular or obscure operas. Perhaps The best known is his totally vulgar Reminiscences de Don Juan (after Mozart), also called the Don Juan Fantasy. Reminiscences de Norma after Bellini’s bel canto opera is a far better piece, more subtle but no less virtuosic, revealing a more sophisticated kind of musician. 

Photo: Finger Waltz

Pisarenko is that kind of artist, for whom no technical challenge, however thorny or fiendish, ever fazes. More importantly, his art is not about banging out the notes but bringing out the music, and he did so without fear or apology. By the way, the programme notes mentions the aria Casta Diva, but nowhere in this reminiscence does this appear.

Photo: Finger Waltz

Pisarenko’s sole encore married both halves of the recital in a most poetic way possible, with the Schubert-Liszt Standchen (Serenade) from Schwanengesang. So beautiful, so refined and so sublime. One cannot wait for Pisarenko’s fourth recital in Singapore.