Pork, music and friends

3 things that made me very happy last night. 

Firstly, the glorious pork meal at Swine, Ben's, Publika. We had Pork Ribs, potato skin with mozzarella cheese fillings, spaghetti carbonara and pork confit with watermelon and lychee salad. I know the name of the salad sounds kinda weird, but its a definitely must have. Fruity and herb-ish, sweet and salty, crispy and soft, all in 1 plate.

Great desert and coffee at The bee's, with beautiful and relaxing ambiance. It was the perfect place for hang out after a good porky meal. We had a sinful  Chocolate Berry Ice-Cream Cake which is served in a glass, it's a dark chocolate ice cream mixed with berries and a biscuit base. Dove into the layers of chocolate ice cream, berries and biscuit, and have a mouthful bite of all the three combination, I assure you it almost feel like magical. We also had apple crumble, cuppucino and the Last Polka's vanilla bean ice cream. We have high hopes for the vanilla bean ice cream but it was a tad too milky to my liking. Made from a blend of Javanese and Papuan vanilla pods, the Last Polka ice cream was famous for its 100% natural ingredients, combining creamy french style ice cream with regional Asian flavors we love, such as teh tarik, salted gula melaka, pandan kaya etc. 

Photo taken from Nana's facebook

Second thing that made me a happy girl last night was the fantastic music performance on the stage by a pair of rugged looking girl and a nerd-nerd looking guy (as described by my friend). They performed some of my favorite songs which I haven't heard for ages, Jason Mraz's, John Mayer's, Lifehouse etc. Nothing fancy nor pop-ish, just a great pair of voices accompanied by acoustic guitars.

Last but not least - friends to enjoy good food and music with. Lying on a lazy couch while chattering to each other, the feeling reminds me of a song by Jack Johnson, "Better Together":

"There is no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a, shoebox of photographs
With sepia-toned loving
Love is the answer,
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
Sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together"

I know this song is about couple's love, but sometimes the feeling of friendship do reminds me the feeling of falling in love. It can be as simple as laughing together at some silly jokes, or just chattering endlessly till the night fade away, you know that its always better when friends are together. 

Malaysian rock band

I started to listen to emo metal rock songs ever since I've attended Evanescence concert.   

To some extent I do understand why this type of genre is appealing to certain group of people. I find that there is a lot of depth in the hysterical style of singing, the emotions was so intense that you will either get sucked into swirling vortex of unknown emotion, or end up screaming at top of your lungs to the songs. It is contagious, it is infectious. 

It was a common misunderstanding that people thinks that heavy metal band scream more than sing. For me, it was a challenge for the vocalist to be screaming hysterically while still singing in tune. Although most of the heavy metal songs runs on a few chords repeatedly, but they still can be highly rhythmical and melodious. Most of the heavy metal band today are no longer hardcore heavy metal. The style of music is fusion of heavy metal with other genre like rock, electronics, groove etc. However, the high pitched vocal lines with occasional growl; the arpeggiated guitar, the blasting bass drum and snare drum are the signature which cannot be missed in the package. 

I was listening to songs of a local band called Rosevelt for the past few days and so far I really like it, especially this song called mirror. The song just stuck in my head like ipod running in loop mode. The ending of the song reminds me of Damien Rice, the singer whose songs had accompanied a significant chunk of my emo youthful days. 

Anyway, lets not dwell too much on that. 

I also like the short composition which the vocalist Nick Davis produced. 

And i kinda like this too.

Enjoy.