SUKA MAKAN: ARAB STREET TURKISH RESTAURANT @ SUNSET WAY

We seldom frequent Turkish restaurants in Singapore, instead having Turkish food whenever overseas, be it in Germany, Austria or Australia. Now we have found a gem of a Turkish restaurant in the neighborhood. Arab Street Turkish & Western Restaurant, to give its full name, is located in the foodie haunt that is Block 106 Clementi, on Sunset Way. Mariner's Corner and Five Star Hong Kong Dim Sum are along the same corridor. 

The outdoor seating is just as colourful.

Now this is a place which we will return often, simple because it has the best tasting Turkish food we've had for a long time, and that includes Germany, Austria and Australia. The decor is suitably exotic, gaudy and colourful, and that simply enhances the atmosphere. The menu has so many items that one wondered how the chef would even cope. 

Chicken and lamb kebabs
with fries, rice and vegetables.
Just delectable!

We were the first customers and got our meal pretty quickly, and the chicken and lamb kebab with rice dish - served with two sauces (one cold tomato-based and the other creamy) - was simply delicious. The lentil soup was complimentary, and that certainly whetted our appetite.

Sauces and lentil soup

Beef pide - just excellent!

We also ordered a beef pide - an oven-baked flat bread with toppings like a pizza, and that too was excellent. It used goat cheese, and one could taste the difference. To wash it all down was authentic Turkish mint tea served in a gleaming tea pot - no tea bags but leaves still on their stems. Simply the best tea we've had, and in addition we were also served iced hibiscus yoghurt tea on the house, which was totally refreshing. We thank the boss Max and chef Arcados for their hospitality, and we will be back before they even know it!

Turkish mint tea
served in the traditional way.

Turkish mint tea
& Hibiscus yoghurt tea

ARAB STREET TURKISH RESTAURANT
Block 106 Clementi Street 12 #01-38
Singapore 120106

restaurant arab street turkish & western (@arabstreetturkishwestern) • Instagram photos and videos 

SSO'S FORGOTTEN RECORDINGS: COMING OF AGE / SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 21ST ANNIVERSARY

COMING OF AGE

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

21st Anniversary

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra marked its 21st birthday in 2000 with this compilation album of recordings made between 1979 and 1999. It includes important landmarks from the orchestra’s history from its inaugural concerts in January 1979, live performances and recordings made during this period. It would go on to make much better recordings, but this album, despite the variable quality of sound, provided an important snapshot of SSO’s progress over the years. The way we were, so to speak.

In the beginning...

The journey takes place at its very beginning, with a live reading of the popular Dance of the Yau People by Mao Yuan and Liu Tien-Shan, from the inaugural concerts at Singapore Conference Hall led by founding music director Choo Hoey, complete with audience applause. Following that is the brief but brutal second movement from Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, issued on a once-off Philips recording to mark SSO’s 10th anniversary in 1989. SSO’s prowess in 20th century music, Choo’s speciality, was evident for all to hear.

The only concertante track was the Rondo from Mozart’s Concerto for Three Pianos in F major (K.242) with the celebrated duo of Dennis Lee and Toh Chee Hung and SSO Chairman Tan Boon Teik, who was then the nation’s attorney-general (a sort of Singapore answer to West Germany’s Helmut Schmidt). That was part of a fund-raising LP recording made in 1983. Music by Singaporean composers was represented by Leong Yoon Pin’s Dayong Sampan, taken from the 1993 documentation recording rather than the 10th anniversary Philips album from 1989.

Lim Yau (extreme right) was
SSO Associate Conductor and SSC Chorusmaster
when he got the Cultural Medallion in 1990.

The dramatis personae who defined the SSO’s early years have been included, including long-time associate conductor Lim Yau and his Singapore Symphony Chorus, performing the Ode To Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth, the Choral Symphony. The 10-minute segment starts from bar 195, after the first orchestral fugue, all through to its glorious end. Lim’s successor for three years (1998-2000), the American Bart Folse is represented with Isoldes Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, the recording from a Familiar Favourites concert “Opera Without Words”. SSO’s principal guest conductor the Finn Okko Kamu, appointed in 1994, does the honours in three Brahms Hungarian Dances, Nos.1, 5 and 17.

Bart Folse assumed Lim Yau's positions
from 1998 to 2000.

Okko Kamu was SSO Principal
Guest Conductor for over 20 years.

Lan Shui was SSO music director
from 1997 to 2019.

In 1997, Lan Shui succeeded Choo Hoey, becoming SSO’s second music director. One of his earliest recording projects on the Swedish BIS label was the complete symphonies and piano concertos of Russia-born composer Alexander Tcherepnin. The 2nd movement from the Third Symphony “Chinese” has been included here. The hour-long disc closes with three dances from Tchaikovsky’s ballets Swan Lake (Waltz) and Sleeping Beauty (Panorama and Waltz), a clear demonstration that the orchestra was truly adept in dance music.

At the turn of the century, SSO at 21 had come of age, and that was just the beginning of a long journey to musical excellence and worldwide recognition.

The cardboard case which the 
jewel case and CD were enclosed.

Post-script: This commemoration album was not for public sale, but presented to sponsors and guests at SSO's fundraising dinner in 2000. As editor of BraviSSimO! (The SSO Friends newsletter) and all-round kaypoh at large, I was asked to script the programme notes as well as the Chairmen's congratulatory messages.

A PIANO CONCERTO CONCERT NOT TO MISS: BEETHOVEN 3 & 4 WITH RE:SOUND on 11 JULY 2026

HERE IS A PIANO CONCERTO CONCERT NOT TO MISS, featuring two of Singapore's brightest young pianists with re:Sound. The first concert in the Dennis Lee Piano Series, Abigail Sin will perform Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto and Lin Xiangning will solo in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. This series is inaugurated in memory of the late Penang-born pianist Dennis Lee (1946-2023) who has been a vital part of Singapore's musical life over the decades.

The programme:

BEETHOVEN 

Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37

with ABIGAIL SIN, Piano

BEETHOVEN

Cavatina from String Quartet, Op.130

BEETHOVEN

Piano Concerto No.4 in G major, Op.58

with LIN XIANGNING, Piano

with re:Sound

led by Yang Shuxiang, Concertmaster

Saturday 11 July 2026

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Tickets available here:

The Resound Collective Dennis Lee Piano Series

SSO'S FORGOTTEN RECORDINGS: LEONG YOON PIN SYMPHONIC WORKS OF SINGAPORE

 

LEONG YOON PIN

Symphonic Works of Singapore

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Lim Yau & Choo Hoey (Conductors)

Designated a “documentation project of the National Arts Council (NAC)”, this 1993 album might just be the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s most important recording of music by a Singaporean composer. Why do so few Singaporean works get recorded by the SSO is not a mystery, as the orchestra and the powers that be never really put their faith in local composers then. Very few local works appeared in concert programmes, and one began to wonder if Singaporean composers even existed. This recording made by Naxos Singapore was only distributed locally, and why it never made into the label’s mainstream recordings for worldwide circulation was also a real pity.

Leong Yoon Pin (1931-2011) was the doyen of Singapore’s composers. As a music lecturer at the Teachers Training College, he received a scholarship by the French government to study composition with Nadia Boulanger in 1966-67. His works combines modern idioms, contrapuntal vigour with Asian aesthetics, writing Nanyang music even before the term was conceived.

The classic example was the overture Dayong Sampan (1980), a symphonic fantasy on the popular Malay song, known as Tian Mi Mi in Chinese. This performance led by Choo Hoey shaves a few seconds off the 1989 recording made on the Philips label. The other works on this album were conducted by SSO Associate Conductor Lim Yau. Another work occasionally heard in concert is Giocoso – Largamente, from Symphony No.2 (1979), possibly Leong’s most often programmed symphonic movement. There is a festive and celebratory air in this music, making it one of his most accessible works. Till this day, neither the symphony nor its predecessor have been recorded by the SSO in their entirety.

The final four works are rarely ever (or never) heard in concert, so rare that they could not even accessed on YouTube. All possess an austerity associated with Leong’s serious work, even if the subject is local in nature. Largo – Vivace for strings (1982) is the sort of work which the Basel Chamber Orchestra (or re:Sound for that matter) would revel in.

Episodes In Journey To The West (1983) is not meant to be programmatic but reflects on the exploits of Sun Wukong, the monkey god, and relations with his pilgrim companions as they seek the holy scriptures from India. The music is structured on a tone row, and there are three connected sections marked Andante moderato, Allegro and Adagio, closing in reverential calm and solemnity as nirvana is finally realised.

The tone poem Temasekian (1990), at 18 minutes, is the longest work on the disc. The music dwells on Singapore’s forefather and includes elements of Chinese, Indian and Malay music, all the tropes of classic Nanyang music. Far from being populist, the themes are terse and abstract, although dances, ceremonies and festivals may be discerned through the drumming and percussive rhythms. Closing the album is Metamorphosis (1993), composed for the Singapore Youth Orchestra’s concert tour to Japan. Following the Lisztian model, thematic transformation of simple presenting motifs take place, but so discreet that one without a score in hand barely notices. The music alternates between spareness and opulence in textures, stasis and kinesis, which is characteristic in Leong’s output.

Choo Hoey gets first billing although
he conducted only one work, while
Lim Yau conducted five!

Aside from the first two which are more accessible, much of Leong’s orchestral output is more respected that actually loved. Nonetheless, this album is an important document in the history of orchestral music in Singapore. The SSO under Lim Yau (mostly) performs the works with exemplary discipline and precision, which the exacting music demands. What we need now are recordings of his two symphonies and orchestral choral works to complete the picture.

SUKA MAKAN: SIN KEE FAMOUS CHICKEN RICE @ HOLLAND CLOSE

For me, there are just two chicken rice places to go to in Singapore. One is Wee Nam Kee at United Square and the other is Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice. There are now so many Sin Kee Chicken Rice stalls in Singapore that it boggles the mind. The OG was the stall in the old now-demolished Margaret Drive Food Centre, where long queues used to form on the second floor of the market. It later moved to the coffin-shaped market (now Margaret Market) on Commonwealth Avenue, where long queues used to form yet again.

This version of Sin Kee Chicken Rice, now called Sin Kee Famous Chicken Rice, is now humbly located in a food court (Seng Huat Coffee Shop) at the floor of Block 6 Holland Close. The food is exactly the same, the chicken is soft and tender, drizzled with a soy sauce and oil that is simply inviting. The rice is smooth and tasty. The chilli / garlic / thick black sauces are still there to complement the meat. It is exactly the way I remembered it. There are other Sin Kees in the neighbourhood, probably spin-offs from the original stall, but this is real one.

Taugeh (bean sprouts) are a must!

The suite of sauces makes 
the chicken taste special.

Seng Huat has other stalls to supplement the chicken rice, but Janet zooms to the Thai cockles of Kin Hoi Thai Cuisine, which is the default zichar stall of this coffee house. That's good to, but we must try the other Thai dishes on another occasion.

Kin Hoi's cockles are succulent!

The name of the coffee shop / food court
is almost secondary.

There's even an annex that serves
soya bean and cold desserts.

SIN KEE FAMOUS CHICKEN RICE

(SENG HUAT COFFEE SHOP)

Block 6 Holland Close #01-36

Singapore 271006

Who's the original Sin Kee Chicken Rice from Margaret Drive?

CHIAROSCURO / JESSIE M. Piano Recital / Review

 

CHIAROSCURO

JESSIE M. Piano Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (1 July 2026)

In a farewell piano recital before she embarks for undergraduate musical studies at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Young Steinway Artist Jessie M. (Jessie Meng YiRuiXue) gave a very well-conceived programme of mostly late-Romantic works inspired by classic works of art. Winner of multiple prizes including the 2021 National Piano Competition (Intermediate), the 19-year-old displayed a daunting technique that would be the envy of concert pianists double or triple her age.

She began with Enrique Granados’ The Maiden and the Nightingale, the fourth piece from Goyescas (a suite of six pieces inspired by Francisco de Goya’s paintings). Jessie might have opened a little too loud, as the build-up to the climax did not get the gradual work-up of passion it needed. Nevertheless, full-blooded heart-on-sleeve emotions were on show, before enthralling with the nightingale trills in its closing cadenza. An excellent start.

Debussy’s L’isle Joyeuse, after Antoine Watteau’s La Embarquement pour Cythere, seemed like a breeze for Jessie. The play of the waves and outbursts of ecstatic emotions coming to bear before the big payout and a splash to the bottom of the keyboard. She is on a roll, and the audience reciprocating accordingly, witholding applause after the Granados but letting loose on Debussy.

The lyrical lines of Liszt’s La Sposalizio from the Italian Book of Annees de pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), inspired by Raphael’s painting The Betrothal, were gorgeously brought out, contrasted with big left hand octaves and celebratory chords. Rachmaninov’s darkly passionate Prelude in B minor (Op.32 No.10) followed. Its inspiration was The Return by Swiss painter Arnold Bocklin (he of Isle of the Dead infamy), with a “sigh” motif of descending notes depicting nostalgia and regret, one that would return with a vengeance in the second half.

Opening the second half was Liszt’s Ricordanza, the ninth and longest of his 12 Transcendental Etudes. Here Jessie generates playing of much warmth, its remembrances likened to a “bundle of faded love letters”. Her arpeggio technique holds up seamlessly well, as do the dizzying cadenzas, this performance of mostly slow music a clear sign of astonishing maturity.

To close the recital, Rachmaninov’s Sonata No.2 in B flat minor (Op.36) in its earlier 1913 edition was a very brave choice. This version has at least five minutes of extra music, which Rachmaninov thought to be excessively discursive, making many excisions for its better-known 1931 iteration. Jessie launches into the music with fearless abandon, later feeding on its adrenaline from first to last. The descending “sigh” motif returned but more fully fleshed-out, indeed all three movements of the sonata were built around it or some variation of it.

The brooding was palpable but this was still a young person’s vision, and more power to Jessie as she made the slow central movement sing before erupting in that “mother” of orgasmic cadenzas. There might have been a little loss of control in the tumultuous finale, but that meant little in the grand scheme of things, as it was a grandstanding performance all the way to its ecstatic end. With a little tweaking, this was a show to win further piano competitions in the long road ahead.

As encore, Jessie offered Prokofiev’s Toccata (Op.11), a dream performance of a mechanistic nightmare, and Chopin’s final Prelude in D minor (Op.28 No.24), concluding with its fatal three low Ds. Since we are in the key of D minor, will Rachmaninov’s First Sonata and Third Piano Concerto be next?

Jessie M. was presented by Songs Without Words Piano Studio