We've had a guest staying this week, which is always a great incentive to get out and do some of the things on your must try list.

The theme that emerged quite spontaneously as the days unfolded was the city, with all its moods and expressions.

-- The city as the geography seen in a car chase. This was represented by Baby Driver, which I thought was an enjoyable movie, and I'm not usually an action-movie aficionada. (We first heard about it from the premiere-celebrating event that happened to be taking place at Pavilion last week while we were engulfing our Wild Honey salads. According to a former colleague, who was actually at the event, as opposed to listening in bewilderment from afar, star Ansel Elgort is a real looker...)

-- The city as rooted in its products (in KL's case tin, and its more sophisticated brother pewter). For a modern take on pewter, you can go to the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre, which offers a friendly welcome, a brief but interesting tour, a well-stocked showroom, and a pleasant cafe. (And I have to say this warm, jolly "visitor experience" massively exceeded the almost indifferent one offered by the Craft Complex on Jalan Conlay, just down the road from my work. I'm not sure if this is another example of the motivation gap between private and government enterprise, or if we were just unlucky that day.)















-- The city as the light changes, as reflected in a small but powerful exhibition entitled Evening by young Singaporean artist Yeo Tze Yang. As he puts it: "Despite being relatively smaller than most cities, Singapore has many 'different nights'. Scenes from quiet, empty void decks lit by white fluorescent lamps: the starkness of litter, obscene words or O$P$ scribbled on walls, and people in office wear making their way home at 8 pm. There is also the range of 'night' in Geylang, where KTV neon lights start screaming as the sun sets and kopitiams become rowdier as the streets come alive. The persistent tourist image of the Marina Bay Sands skyline is mixed into all that. In these paintings I try to capture these Singapores that passengers on the bus, including myself, traverse every evening." We'd never been to this gallery, on Jalan Rotan, but it's a nice little space.



-- The reinvented city. I'm increasingly intrigued by the different things that can be done with old buildings, and Merchant's Lane, a tucked-away Petaling Street cafe, is reminiscent of the efforts we witnessed in Ipoh to create something new and vibrant, but not too scrubbed up. The food is good, too. My hongkie beef stew (Cantonese-style slow-cooked beef with mash, gravy, and greens) was very tasty, and we all enjoyed slurping up our pandan, lemongrass, and ginger drinks. Pentago House, which we spotted on Jalan Rotan (just along from the art gallery), is another nice example of restoration.





-- The city after dark. PS150 occupies, in somewhat rambling fashion, the bottom floor of the same Petaling Street building where we'd found Merchant's Lane. It's not quite a speakeasy (there is a sign), but the entrance is somewhat disguised. The menu is an exercise book, and you read it with your phone flashlight because it's super-dark in there. The cocktails are fabulous. We sampled each other's, and I can honestly give six straight ticks. My first was a Penicillin ASEAN edition (how could I not...?), incorporating Irish whiskey, ginger rice wine, calamansi, manuka honey, and Islay whisky mist. My second was a Lychee No. 3 (gin, lychee, ginger flower, and lime). Nigel's PS150-edition Jungle Bird, featuring rum, pandan rum, campari, pineapple, lime, and gula melaka syrup, was inspired by the classic Jungle Bird created in the 1970s at the Hilton Kuala Lumpur (hence the dinky flag).