ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

Buah Keluak Chap Chye Pork Trotters in Salted Vegetable Singgang Daniel Feiler and I had lunch at Folklore, Chef Damien DaSilva's new restaurant serving a mix of Peranakan and Eurasian cuisine. Damien is a chef who won't compromise on quality of ingredients and the traditional way of cooking these rare heritage dishes. All the four dishes came out well, and it's probably the best Peranakan food in Singapore currently. Clockwise from top left corner: 1. Nonya Chap Chye. Despite a lowly name which in Chinese just means mixed vegetables, its a distinctive dish, made tasty by the pork belly, prawns, black fungus and tiger lily buds. 2. A twist on the traditional Duck in Salted Vegetable Soup, using Pork Trotters instead. And made even more delicious by a dash of Armagnac brandy, and lime juice. 3. Looking like Caviar, a paste made from the contents of the Buah Keluak a fruit with a slightly bitter, rich, black-colored flesh. An icon of Pe...

HOTELS OF THE FUTURE Welcome to the Hotel of the Future The hospitality industry has always been about good service, meaning not only efficient service, but also service with a personal touch. Thus pleasant receptionists, door men, concierges and housekeepers are part of the necessary DNA of a hotel. But the hotel industry is evolving in line with the changing needs of modern travellers and advances in digital technology allow the industry to cater to the considerably different ‘desires’ of the modern traveller. Rising manpower costs, a shortage of people with good hotel skills, and a congenial personality may be one of the reasons for the trend towards hotels making greater use of digital technology, including the use of robots. But another reason for this digitalisation trend is that the younger generation of hotel customers are already very familiar with, as well as wholeheartedly embracing the digital environment, and they want the hotel of their choice to offer a more d...

THE SECRET GARDEN Away from prying eyes The secret garden thrives A shrine to beauty in Nature raw Feeling blessed I stare in awe Of God's love it reminds Of Nature and the tie that binds. ~~~ntk # I stumbled upon this secret garden in Changi Village, a nook carved out of the secondary vegetation. At least 30 varieties of plants growing in wild abundance. Hibiscus, Camelias, Bougainvillea, Bamboo, Ferns, Palm, Torch Ginger, Blue Pea, Morning Glory, Geraniums, wild Orchid, wild Yam and Tapioca and much more. May God bless the secret gardener.

TECH TRENDS I WOULD LIKE TO MONITOR IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS * * All are in various stages of commercial application, but definitely advancing very rapidly in development. 1. Drones- By now everybody knows what drones are. 2. Internet of Things: Machines, appliances, 'talking' (sending data)to each other, and the data can be harvested for use to provide information for increased efficiency. Think your fridge telling your smart phone you are running out of butter for baking 3. Robotics: Robots everywhere from the factory floor to the home, in the air and under the sea. Remote vehicles mining for minerals under the sea-bed. Pilotless fighter aircraft. 4. Financial markets: Algorithmic trading, pattern recognition and high speed trading (think 1000 trades per second) enhanced by Artificial Intelligence 5. Smart wearables- smart watches, smart clothes, maybe smart shoes monitoring your health, sleep, mental state etc 6. Materials science: self-assembling (think Transformers), self...