A fire station-turned-restaurant/bar, this place is spacious and evokes a sense of quirkiness.
Bottles galore! Of course, for a bar, this must be standard fare.
I can't really comment on their selection, but I'm told their offerings aren't overly expensive.
I really like the wooden textures of their decor.
Christine and I have been eyeing Spruce for a while now, and they didn't disappoint. Their staff are attentive and are quite willing to strike up a conversation with you--so if you're the type who want privacy on your dates, you might find them a little uncomfortable intrusive.
A simple menu where everything can be seen at a glance.
Their macchiato isn't that strong but for a pick-me-up in the morning, it performed its function well.
Christine had a 2-for-1 drinks special while I had the coffee.
On to the main event. As a tip, their sides may sound small, but they are really big. Our server advised against our order of a side each. Here's why:
The French toast is huge! So beware, you might end up not being able to finish your sides!
She had the eggs royale, which is poached eggs with smoked salmon on a muffin. Spruce includes a dash of caviar to add an extra dimension to the dish.
I went with their recommended "chicken benny", which is eggs benedict with a portion of grilled chicken served with waffles. Sounds weird but it works well!
Their portions are huge! I think I will order one main and one side to share with Christine should we come here again.
The recent birthday festivities were absolutely amazing. My wife and I love brunch, and especially Basilico's, which features an open cheese room (only during the Sunday brunch) and numerous legendary dishes like truffle cream risotto and free-flow foie gras.
As a lover of all things truffle and foie gras, I skipped over all the other items on their buffet line, which does look good too.
The main event for me was raiding the cheese room. This time, there was an Italian cheese chef who asked for my preferences and made his recommendations. When I said I wanted to try everything, he made it a point to pick out his most adventurous cheese: urbiaco al Barolo, which is wine-infused cheese. As a Methodist, I can't drink, but since this is in food, I suppose the rule won't apply here.
The best dishes of the day, however, still went to the pan-fry station because of foie gras. I think Christine and I must have eaten at least $100 worth of the gooey goodness.
Last but not least, we also raided the truffle dish of the day. Unfortunately, it wasn't the standard risotto; alas, it was changed to a truffle cream ravioli. Nonetheless, it was still really good.
As far as I was concerned, I was done. However, as all wives would be quick to point out, a buffet is incomplete without desserts. So here's a short collection of obligatory dessert shots:
What a day this has been. Thank you dearest, for the wonderful treat! It was an amazing experience!
When Christine took leave on a Monday morning, the hunt was on for a cafe we could have brunch at. Here's where social media is pretty cool; we were browsing our friends' Instagram feeds and chanced upon some photos of Paddy Hills.
Parking here would be a severe problem on the weekends. I'd recommend parking at the nearby private estate (which may be to the chagrin of the home owners; park at your own risk!)
Unassuming facade, but wait until you go inside.
Tucked away in a small enclave just beyond the windy roads of South Buona Vista Road, your best bet at reaching this Aussie-inspired fusion cafe is by car--we checked the bus stop and found only one bus servicing this place.
The cafe has a hip vibe to it, but I'll let you be the judge of that:
Christine and I ordered a mixture of savoury and sweet: their famous "hei rice" which was essentially squid ink fried rice served with fried chicken, and their pancakes. As for drinks, she had a yuzu cooler and I had their piccolo.
The bubbles were sweetened too, and it was a race to pop them in our mouths before they went out by themselves!
The piccolo was light, and not as strong as I'd like it to be. But then again, I'm a coffee addict!
Strip away the edible flowers and the chocolate powder coating and you're essentially eating pancakes, ice cream and berries.
The rice is topped with mentaiko sauce and a soft-boiled egg that you have to crack yourself. Oh well, I suppose it makes you more excited since you're personally involved in the last step of food preparation.
Even though we were advised that the portions were small, Christine and I were full sharing just these two dishes. I think you'd seriously be full even with sharing. All-in-all, it was a great place to have a relaxing brunch. As it was a Monday, there was no crowd. I'm told that during the weekends, the crowd can sully the experience.
So I'm supposed to be studying but the lighting conditions are far less than ideal, so I'll take a little break to blog before moving up to my room where I have much better lights (but also much more distractions). Here's the update of my life for the past few months, so I'll be concise and share the relevant stuff.
Study, study, study!
The biggest update is that I've stopped work at AMKMC and am now a full time theological student at Trinity Theological College. I'll let some of these photos do the talking for me:
Orientation Day was packed.
My class is huge!
At the TTC chapel, where I go for chapel services, a staple part of student life.
The Hebrew Aleph-bet (alphabet), which we had to memorize on the first day.
Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew.
Church history class.
This year's CSCA lectures with Dr. Simon Chan on "Subversive Liturgy".
Random picture of Jumbo sleeping under my car while taking a break from studying.
Our visit to St. Mary of the Angels for our Field Education.
Reading my Mission and Evangelism textbook with a book stand to alleviate some of the "eyeball aches" I've been getting recently.
A view of the chapel from the back (where I'm usually now since undertaking AV responsibilities).
I've completed my first year Old Testament and Theology courses, so "by right" I should have more time to study than my fellow first year sufferers. But the truth is, I feel like I don't. I'm discovering that in order to retain information, I can't read at my usual pace. I miss out a ton of details! With Thursday mostly free and Friday all to myself, I pray that I will be able to catch up with my friends who are so well-adept at reading and writing. You can keep me in prayer for:
Church History - I'm really quite bad at geography and remembering places!
Hebrew 1 - 'Nuff said.
Mission and Evangelism - A mountain of readings, and a lot of group projects. Thankfully, my group mates are amazing!
New Testament 1 - The hardest for me so far. Our textbook isn't the friendliest and I've had to read up or watch other lectures to make sense of what the author of our textbook is trying to say.
Gigs and gear adventures
By the grace of God, I'm still able to get some vitamin M (music) in my system. My ministry "swan song" was serving on a worship team at this year's YMEFLC (Young Methodist-Evangelical Free Leaders' Conference), which I had the immense privilege of playing through a Fender Deluxe Reverb. Tonal bliss!
My amp sim became a mute switch. What a beauty of an amp!
In September, I'll be performing with some pals of mine I've come to admire and respect at Blujazz. Ivni and Wai Yee are blind musicians and are part of an annual concert at Blujazz (Ivni is a drum student at Bossworkz Music School, and yes, he is a blind drummer!) and I've had the privilege of meeting them to play on their bands for the past two years. It's a humbling experience to play alongside them because they show me that music transcends boundaries, even physical ailments.
I didn't have time to take a picture of them, but here's a shot of me rehearsing with an iRig Pro interface and using my phone as the effects processor.
Also, I think I've discovered that there is no way to achieve high gain tones through analog pedals unless you have a decent high-gain amp--which I will never own. Hence, my recent acquisition of iRig gear to play heavier stuff: and I'm mightily impressed! How I wish this technology was available to me when I was starting out! iRig equipment makes the multi-fx style of gear much more accessible for the beginner guitarist.
The short answer: most definitely. There's only one time a direct signal from the guitar into the board is acceptable, and that's to record a pure clean signal from the guitar. Jeff Baxter very famously recorded pure clean tracks for sessions when a clean guitar was required. Just check out what he says about equipment in the following video:
Here's a simple riff I recorded back-to-back, the first without speaker emulation, and the second with a 4x12" cab emulation from my Korg Pandora:
The distortion has peaks and spikes that are just ear-piercingly intolerable, doesn't it? Hence, a speaker emulation achieves its effect by mostly rolling off treble content.
If you're wondering what kind of content I produce on my channel, they're mostly lessons and play-throughs of songs. Feel free to browse my channel after looking through these playlists, and don't forget to like and subscribe!
(This is an old post which was left in my "Drafts" folder, and I must have forgotten to publish it. So rather than keeping it hidden, here it is!)
Less doesn't necessarily mean losing out. A smaller car is still a means of transportation, and it can have features which bigger cars lack (a retractable roof on a cabriolet over an ordinary sedan, for example). Likewise, when I was attempting to record using the SansAmp GT2, I found that its simplicity was its greatest strength. Here's my entire recording rig:
A tuner to keep the guitars in tune
The SansAmp GT2, an amp simulator with an arsenal of tone at my fingertips.
The Visual Sound H20, which provides depth to the tone with delay and chorus. I find that even when used in the "short" delay mode for a really fast slapback, the H20 has this effect of making your notes stick out more.
My trusty M-Audio Fast Track Pro. To keep the preamp noise of the FTP low, I set the gain to about 50% up, and adjust the Input gain of the GT2 to taste. I like to record to -6dB, which seems to be the threshold at which the guitar tone "speaks" with clarity, but that's my personal preference.
Character switches include
MIC:
Classic = distant miking without ambiance.
Center = close miking at the center of a speaker cone.
Off-Axis = close miking at the edge of a speaker cone.
MOD:
Clean, which gives you a stock tube amp set-up.
Hi Gain, which gives you an extra gain stage, as if you were to install an additional 12AX7 tube in the pre-amp section.
Hot-Wired, which gives you a scooped-out midrange for a sizzling, over-the-edge quality.
AMP:
Tweed = Fender®-style
British = Marshall®-style
California = Mesa Boogie®-style
Check out the Marshall tone from this setup!
It's great for bass tones too. I set this tone up using the manual's setting for "SVT Bass" style:
This post begins with a story. I've owned the Strymon "Trinity" (the nickname given to the collection of Mobius, TimeLine and BigSky pedals). While I had some limited control with the DMC-3XL, I was clearly in need of a solution to the problem I had with having so many pedals to switch, in addition to the patches I wanted to control on the Strymon devices. I had my heart set on getting the DPC-8EZ and DMC-8D, their two largest controllers that were designed to perfectly complement one another.
So enter the good people at The G.A.S. Station, a local company I chanced upon while searching on ways to bring in Disaster Area gear. I got in touch with Bertram, the proprietor, and we began the creative process of figuring out my rig needs. I placed an order for three things: the two controllers, and 3 packs of Disaster Plugs, the patch cables needed to wire the DPC-8EZ up. The excitement in me was palpable; I haven't had GAS in a very long time! This was in late November.
Bertram was very kind to keep me up to date with messages regarding payment and shipping. He sent me the shipment tracking number and this transpired:
I had hoped the shipment would arrive in December so I would have had time to put together the rig for Christmas services. But look at the date of the picture above. I took the screen shot in late January. The shipment was in transit from Germany for two whole months. There was no use getting angry over the situation; international shipments go awry all the time, and I was simply the one guy in a thousand cases to lose something.
My heart did sink at the prospect of having wasted a chunk of my paycheck--Disaster Area gear doesn't come cheap! So I talked to Bertram, and every effort was made on his part to contact Disaster Area, USPS, SingPost and even Singapore Customs. By early February, we had established that the shipment was indeed lost, but Disaster Area was very kind to build a replacement set for me. Yes, a replacement! Bertram, of course, never disappointed in his timely messages and open communication.
This time, the shipment came really quick. I got my hands on the pedals that I had been waiting three months for:
I would have thought that I'd need a lot of time to get the complete system up and running, but to my pleasant surprise, Disaster Area gear is so intuitive and easy to set up that I was programming patches in no time!
Of course, not all setups with new gear is without problems and learning curves. Here are some things I wish I could have done better:
I don't have proper wire cutters, so I used a large pair of scissors to cut the Disaster Plug cable. I think this may have contributed to the reason I wasn't getting signal in some of the patch cables I made, and I had to recut some patch cables several times to get proper signal.
I don't have a proper cable tester. My cable testing method was plugging the patch cable from guitar to amp. If the signal was strong and noise-free, I had a good cable. If there was no signal, I had to either tighten the ground plug or recut the cable. I would have saved a lot of time if I had a cable tester.
I don't have right-angled, low profile MIDI cables, so there was some pedal real estate wastage, as you'll see in my final setup below. Anyone know where to get right-angled MIDI cables locally?
Here's a quick video I did to show how to configure and program patches on the controllers, for those of us intending to expand our pedalboard with Disaster Area gear:
Once again, a great shout-out to Bertram from The G.A.S. Station! Give them a follow on Facebook and get some cure for that G.A.S.!
I had a moment with the Holy Spirit, which prompted me to segue into a song I hadn't planned in my setlist. I could feel everyone hop onboard that moment, and there we were, singing our hearts out, some praying in tongues, others, like me, singing from the depths of my tiredness, sorrow and pain a new song of praise and worship.
And when the moment passed and it was time for me to hand over the time, I got that look from one of the authoritarian Megalomaniacs in our midst: "What the heck are you doing?" (I've heard him use harsher terms on me before.)
Let me share from my heart (a rarity for me, but something I am embracing if I am to be authentic).
If authentic worship means being open to how the Spirit moves, and being ready to pour my heart out like an offering unto God, I don't see why I am being judged for obeying the Spirit. I hear Jesus calling me out to be raw and real. I hear the Spirit singing alongside my offering of worship. I sense the Father's smile as He looks on His worshipful children.
Sure, it wasn't planned. That's precisely why it's authentic. You won't hear my heart's cry when I'm rehearsed. But you see, that's the way God has wired me. I am made to worship in a certain style, in a certain setting. There is as much validity in spontaneous, raw worship as in traditional, quiet liturgy--all are expressions of worship God longs for us to engage in to meet with Him!
I challenge every worship leader to be conscious of how God has made you to lead. Are you in the traditional stream? Then craft corporate prayers to the glory of He who hears our every cry. Are you in the contemporary stream? Then let your worship flow with the fullness of the Spirit, letting your songs and dance and thoughts bring everyone towards the jubilant expression that God takes delight in.
