Spaghetti al Gambero al Ristorante Acqua e Farina

We managed to get to Acqua e Farina at Keong Saik Road for the last order. Of course we sat outdoors. They thoughtfully tiled the flooring at the corridor, as well as installed ceiling fans. It was a hot hot night at 32°C, but not completely unbearable with the fans providing some moving air. 

I've stopped by its restaurant at The Rail Mail ages. It's a family restaurant that I would return if it were more convenient to me. The restaurant survived the fickle F&B industry for 20 years and just opened up an outlet at Keong Saik Road. I really hope they find a balance between manpower and rental and operational costs. We have many similar Italian restaurants in Singapore. If it's just pizza and pasta, one can find them anywhere. 

There's free corkage for bottles, but the per glass charges are imposed; fair enough. They have a decent enough wine list, so I'm not particular bothered about bringing wine unless it's something special for a gathering. I didn't intend to have a full bottle of wine. Opted for an easy carafe of wine tonight. 

This is by no means fine dining, but starters are priced between S$20 for a portion of soup and S$33 for a portion of braised onions with green asparagus and panfried air-cured guanciale. Pastas aren't going below S$36 a portion. The man took the tagliatelle al cacao con gamberetti e nduja. I never understand this pasta — the sweet hints come out stronger than the spicy or savoury. I wanted a simple spaghetti al gambero. It was done aglio e olio with king prawns. It was good, but I should have asked for it to be spicier. Hurhurhur. 

Congee at Sin Heng Kee

When we were hungry but not having any sort of giant cravings at mid-day, lunch was to be casual. It was blazing as hell, nobody thought it was weird to go to an equally humid non-air-conditioned food center in the middle of Toa Payoh to eat hot congee. LOLOLOL 

It was 34°C. And we had been outdoors all morning. This is as Singaporean as it gets I suppose. Well, we were rather sweaty to begin with, so nobody minded perspiring more!

We trooped off to Sin Heng Kee (新興記) for congee. Its Toa Payoh Lorong 6 outlet was the most convenient to us that day. This is a spot that is packed out from 11.30am to 1.15pm. Go at 1.30pm if you don't want to spend time waiting for seats. We turned up at 1.30pm and easily got a table for four.

Everyone chose different ingredients for their congee. I opted for a no-brainer sliced pork and century egg congee. Wow, they're really generous with the century egg, which came in cubes. I still added more century egg. Oof. The table also shared boiled pork and prawn dumplings.  

The congee is quite delicious lah — the home-cooked chunky type rather than the smooth blended versions the restaurants serve up. But some might say Sin Heng Kee's congee might be a tad salty. Of course one could request for less salt, but I don't know if I'm okay with the sodium levels though.

SIFA :: 'Home'

As hectic as my schedule is these few weeks, I also made time to catch some ticketed shows at SIFA venues. I was pleasantly surprised by how much audience participation there was in 'HOME'.

Created by Geoff Sobelle, who also acted in the show, it was a wonderful piece of performance theatre. What a talented cast! The set was amazing, as are the actors who had a comedic sense of timing at the right moments. What a great of absurdist theatre. 

We see a 'house' artistically built from nothing, and the actors made it a home. We see the people in the home simultaneously, going to bed as one resident, and waking up as another, although they presumably lived in it one after the other. We see morning rituals, getting in and out of the bath-tub, kitchen things and daily going-ons. Even the kitchen sink had water coming out of the tap. It was rather magical. 

The show travels internationally, but in each city, it involves and includes local audiences, and even local musicians. It was so fun for the audiences to be invited up to stage to participate in rituals of parties, friendship, marriages, childbirth, and death. The cast happily went around to pick people. I was sitting in the front few rows, and unfortunately, at the sides — quite a sitting duck. I totally shrank into my seat and avoided eye contact. Ahahahaha. 

There was a jar of olives handed out to audiences and passed around. Then we were all asked to help string up the lights. We all felt included. Two members of the audiences (who happened to be Singaporean) were given microphones, and asked to talk about their childhood homes and describe some details. That was an intimate touch. The audiences invited up were absolutely sporting, and performed admirably.  

Since this is a non-narrative performance, it's like a 'live documentary'. We were all made to think what makes a house, a home. As a rental venue, residents come and go, but we pretty much do the same thing. Well, except for serial murderers who might have secret basements or bury corpses in the walls. 

 Folk-rock musician Elvis Perkins provided vocals for the show's original music, with additional vocals lent by chamber choir The Crossing. Elvis also played the guitar and the alto-harp. That was really quite lovely. The show ended with a little band from the collective Jacept Brass that played 'Rasa Sayang' and it was a party all the way through.