KL diary: Paganini, Perak, Batman, bingsoo, and burgers
by prudence on 14-Feb-2017I'm a little behind. And Thaipusam needed a post of its own.
But it's been a good music week-and-a-bit. Apart from the Wagner and Berlioz that (kind of appropriately) presaged our quest for the silver chariot on Friday, we also enjoyed a Sunday MPO concert with an Italian theme.
Full marks for Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture, Boccherini/Berio's "four original versions of ritirata notturna di Madrid", and Mendelssohn's Italian symphony. But the absolute piatto forte was Paganini's fifth violin concerto, played by Russian virtuoso Sergej Krylov.
Truly, I have never heard such magnificent violin-playing. The sweetness and mellowness of his tone, his impeccable intonation, and his overall spot-on accuracy made this a piece to remember for a very long time.
There's a little taste here (and he played this for our encore, too).
Perak arrived in the shape of one of the "Ilham Conversations" at the Ilham Gallery, which featured a showing of Khoo Eng Yow's 2004 doco Ah Kew the Digger, followed by a Q&A with Khoo himself. This was a very enjoyable little event. Lee Eng Kew, the doco's main historian-protagonist is very likable, the stories about the historical characters are good, and the old favourite questions about history ("what REALLY happened" and "why would anyone want to read that?") are treated lightly but richly.
(I'm also loving that I can recognize the odd character in the Chinese subtitles, or the occasional word in the Mandarin bits of the dialogue. Not much, I grant you. But more than I could a few months ago.)
Moving on to the Bs...
The Lego Batman Movie is wonderfully ridiculous. Or ridiculously wonderful, if you prefer. That's all I need to say really.
Our bingsoo came from Snowball Bingsoo in Avenue K. And it was really good. That trademark Korean milky ice, with (in my case) a pleasantly tart grapefruit topping.
As you look forward to spooning up your bingsoo, you can flick through Korean glossies such as "Life and Dogue", or imbibe the wisdom of your next favourite K-drama star (example: Lee Min Ho says, "Those who give up can't gain victory"). As I can't imagine not wanting to do any of those things, I'm guessing we'll be back.
And the burgers came from KGB, Bangsar. While there was absolutely nothing wrong with my "animal style" burger ("crust seared beef, mustard grilled, sharp cheddar, caramelized onion, and shack sauce"), my particular shout-out would go to the salt and pepper fries and the KGB iced tea ("apple + mint + lavender + tea"), which sounds weird, but really worked.
And then it was Monday...